2013. vol. 10. No. 2

This paper analyzes the problems of etymology and the typology of reflection, characterizes the phenomenology and typology of empirical manifestations of reflexive processes, and offers an understanding of reflection, synthesizing its philosophical, psychological, and interdisciplinary aspects.

Despite numerous psychological studies, there is still no clear definition of the psychological reality of reflection (as opposed to thinking or consciousness); indeed, there are many, often conflicting, interpretations that have little in common with each other. This complicates the design of experiments and the interpretation of results, hinders conceptual generalizations and their integration with the interdisciplinary research of reflection, and makes impossible interfacing with the philosophical traditions and scientific trends of modern human science.

Moreover, the philosophical interpretation of reflection is often directly and uncritically borrowed without the necessary ontological psychologization. In order to define the psychological concept of “reflexivity”, so as to be able to study the phenomenology of reflexive processes and develop their theoretical typology, it is advisable to first analyze the etymological roots of the Latin word “reflection”, the transformation of its meaning ​​in European languages, and its subsequent assimilation into the Russian language. Using historiographical, etymological, subject-themed, philosophical and methodological, systematic typological, empirical phenomenological, theoretical psychological and conceptual encyclopaedic methods, this paper analyzes the problems of the etymology and typology of reflection, characterizes the phenomenology of empirical manifestations of reflexive processes, and provides an understanding of reflection, synthesizing its philosophical, psychological, and interdisciplinary aspects.

The paper’s conclusions are that the necessary prerequisites for psychologization of the philosophical category of “reflection” are: 1) explication of a philosophical understanding of reflection, 2) development of its conceptual models, 3) development of the typology of reflection based on a conceptual model, 4) differentiation of the phenomenology of reflexive processes, 5) systematization of etymological roots of the term “reflection”, 6) development of an encyclopaedic definition of “reflection”. One of the possible definitions is proposed in this paper; in fact, it formed the theoretical basis for the creation of the scientific school of reflexive humanitarian psychology of creative thinking and consciousness of creative individuality.

Philosophical understanding and study of reflection is necessary to explore the fundamental relationships of this process with other phenomena of life, as well as to understand its problematic areas. Our goal is to develop a new methodological and conceptual angle to study reflection.

First of all, the article presents an analysis of the term “reflection”, its etymology, the typology of use and its importance in terms of philosophy and psychology, as well as its integral understanding.

Analysis of the various philosophical traditions – the transcendental, Marxist, existential–hermeneutic – provides a basis for a new angle to explore reflection. Development of a new model of reflection (the network functional model) is based on modern methodological approaches. Based on the established philosophical and methodological grounds, we offer a new understanding of reflection as part of the cultural-historical and dialogical approaches.

We distinguish the following basic principles and approaches to the study of reflection: the axiological principle, the dialogical principle, the event-relatedness principle, development, determinism, teleology, historicism and poly-processuality. From the possible methodological approaches, we chose the functional, process, system and network approaches. Development of the network model of reflection required us to identify the basic concepts (elements), which together make up the definition of reflection. These are “I-in-reflection”, time-space of reflexive reality, reflexive position, etc.

Based on the basic provisions and network functional model of reflection as part of the cultural-historical and dialogical paradigms of psychology, we understand reflection as a way of life of the person associated with the dialogic construction of a new, whole idea of ​​reality (internal or external, material or ideal) which is manifested in its conditional separation from common ties and consideration of the reflective position of the other, so that the hidden, implicit properties and relations of this reality become apparent.

Self-realization is gradually transformed into a social and personal value having a significant impact on the life of the individual. Within the reflexive-sense approach, readiness for self-realization is considered as a product of the self-awareness process; the authors view it as a psychological substance of motivational (attitudinal) nature and complex structure. According to the authors, existential reflection plays a key role at all stages of the self-awareness process. The authors’ conception is supported through diagnostic constructs and empirical indicators that, in the process of self-awareness, gradually become components of the readiness for self-realization, which is an instrument of self-reflexive self-regulation of the personality.

In this paper the readiness for self-realization is empirically verified through its indicators, such as self-concept, self-actualization and purpose-in-life orientations of an individual. Three hundred and sixty managers took part in the experiment. The managers had different work experience and were employed in different positions within their organisations. The subjects were divided into two groups based on their objective performance indicators, the results of expert evaluations by experienced managers and self-evaluations. Based on the total score for the criteria listed above, the subjects were classified as “successful” or “unsuccessful”. The main aim of the research was to look at the difference between the readiness for self-realization across the two groups. Three questionnaires were used: The Self-concept questionnaire by SR Panteleev, the Purpose-in-Life Orientation test by DA Leontiev and an Inventory for the Measurement of Self-Actualization adapted by NF Kalin.

Our results suggest that the “successful” managers have a more adequate self-image and a pronounced positive personal meaning of self; they have a more developed level of personal reflection, a higher need for cognition, and more desire for creativity. These managers are more autonomous and spontaneous; they tend to live “here and now” and consider their lives as productive and naturally feel the satisfaction of self-actualization.

Nowadays, training tourism professionals requires, among other things, the formation of professional reflective competence that includes professional cultural identity as its value component. The formal logic of scientific knowledge taught to university students creates an image of seeming isolation and separation of science from general culture. However, one of the functions of the scientific representation of the world is to provide the objectification and understanding of the related scientific knowledge and their inclusion in the culture. One of the technologies to achieve this is the reflective-dialogical approach associated with the development of a creative orientation of the subject of scientific and practical knowledge, and equipped with special means for understanding of one’s own self, one’s own activities and cultural identity.

Even a very refined and formalized knowledge is represented by the words of an intermediary – a teacher acting as a cultural mediator and taking the student as a subject of scientific knowledge out of the closed structure of science. Cultural mediators involved in the process of scientific cognition in university allow students (as subjects of scientific knowledge dwelling in various scientific discourses) to find common ground for building event communication through metaphor.

We have conducted a theoretical and empirical study of the development of professional cultural identity of future managers. The experiment was conducted in two stages: in the first part the author explored the functioning of self-image of students with low self-esteem (36 people); in the second part the author conducted the formative experiment that dealt with control and experimental groups (18 people in each). 

The experimental group was trained in the framework of reflective dialogue (social reflection), and the control group was trained within the traditional framework of lectures and seminars.

The experimental results obtained gave grounds for conclusions regarding the relation between subjectively valid (personal) and objectively valid (reflexive) components of the orientation; namely, they confirmed the important role of dialogue in the development of professional reflexive competence of future professionals.

Identity studies are one of the most popular in psychology, and studies of identity on the Internet into the conditions of virtual reality, especially in the blogosphere and social networks, are at the forefront. An important characteristic of network identity is that it is not gradually built by itself in the process of growing and aging – it is constructed to be explicitly presented to others. This work is a study of gender and age specificity of the “network” identity and “real” identity of active users of social networks in adolescence, youth and early adulthood. This paper also addresses (and attempts to offer a solution to) the problem of qualitative and quantitative assessment of the differences between network and real identity in adolescents and young adults, actively communicating in social networks.

We conducted a comparative analysis of network identity and real identity using the “Aspects of Identity” questionnaire (JM Cheek et al.) and in-depth interviews with active users of social networks aged 15–25 years (42 people). The sample consisted of three age groups with seven male and seven female active social network users in each group. The hypotheses of the difference between the individual parameters of network and real identity and of age and gender differences related to self-presentation were explored. Gender and age differences were revealed in scores on the identity scales (for the social identity in network and in reality and for the surface identity in network), as well as on the network–reality gap (on individual and relational identity). Scores on different identity scales have significant differences in “network” and “reality” conditions. Factors of real and network identity have significant intercorrelations, suggesting that the two types of identity are mutually permeable.

American psychologist Edward Tory Higgins developed a theory of self-discrepancy in which it is defined as the discrepancy between the various aspects of self-concept of the individual. Higgins identifies the following types of inconsistencies in the representations of the person about themselves: “actual–ideal” and “actual–ought” self-discrepancies. The main advantage of Higgins’ theory is that it deals with a specific set of inconsistencies in the individual representations of themselves, which results from not only the conceptualization of the problem, but also from many empirical studies based upon it. As a result, the researcher has proposed an original measure. This article reports on the results of approbation of The Selves Questionnaire on a Russian-speaking population.

Development of a new instrument is associated with the representations of the person’s beliefs about themselves. The questionnaire evaluates the discrepancies between the various aspects of self-concept, in particular between the “actual self” and / or “ideal self” or “ought self” from two perspectives: own and “significant other”. The study was conducted on a Russian-speaking sample of subjects aged 22 to 60 years (81 people in total, including 44 females and 37 males). The sample consisted of students of Moscow universities studying for their first or second degree, as well as of their intimate relatives (parents, siblings, etc.) and colleagues or friends. The approbation included a test–retest reliability check (r ranged from 0.391 to 0.503, p < 0.01). The Test–retest interval ranged from 4 to 6 months. The analysis has proved satisfactory psychometric properties of the questionnaire that are discussed in detail in the paper. Problem areas related to further adaptation and validation are identified. 

This article describes the constructs of autonomous and controlled, i.e. deeply and superficially internalized, motivation, suggested in self-determination theory, and their application to religious studies.

Autonomously motivated activity is performed because it is interesting, personally important and consistent with the values ​​of an individual; controlled motivation comes from the “outside”, either literally (rewards and punishments) or metaphorically (shame and guilt, conditional self-esteem).
The theory of self-determination describes the various effects of autonomous and controlled motivation in different areas – depending on its motivation, the same activity may have opposite effects on human well-being. Autonomous motivation is associated with psychological well-being positively, and controlled motivation negatively.

The phenomenon of the opposite effect of two types of motivation of the same activity is confirmed in application to religion; also, these types of motivation are associated with the specific religious phenomena – literal or symbolic interpretation of the objects of faith and extremism. Several authors make recommendations on the ways to support the autonomy and psychological well-being of parishioners.
The empirical part of the paper presents the results of the validation of the Russian version of the questionnaire of autonomous and controlled motivation in religion (Intrel). Items related to different motivational constructs (subtypes of autonomous and controlled motivation) having sufficient variance and consistency of responses were identified on an Internet sample of Orthodox Christians; selected items were factored. Constructed scales of autonomous and controlled motivation in religion showed good psychometric properties.

This article provides an overview of the two different explanations for the origin of the subjective experience of emotions of different modalities, thus summarizing all currently existing explanations and their criticism. In order to supplement these explanations and to take into account the criticism, the article suggests an alternative explanation, which relates the emergence and strengthening of emotion with the suppression of the spontaneous response to an emotionally significant stimulus. In a univariate, intersubjective experiment testing this explanation the reactions of subjects were compared when viewing a funny cartoon in three conditions: free expression, suppression of expression (the prohibition of a smile) and replacement of a spontaneous expression (smile) with an artificial expression (handclaps). The presentation sequence and cartoons’ features were balanced.

The results indicate that the subjective evaluations of cartoons, depending on the instructions, significantly changed only on the scales relevant to the experimental conditions (gay and boring) and remained virtually the same on six other scales (including "interesting" and "enjoyable"). When subjects had to suppress spontaneous smiles and replace them with an artificial expression, evaluation of joyfulness of the cartoon increased and the boredom score decreased. The results argue that it was the suppression of the spontaneous displays of emotions, rather than their emergence, acting out or realization (as it was believed so far), that promoted the increase in perceived intensity of subjective experience, and, on the contrary, the acting out lead to a decrease in perceived intensity. The rationale for this explanation of the origin of subjective experience provides an answer to the question, why it is so hard to show a stable relationship between the subjective experience of emotion and its outward manifestations (expressive, physiological, behavioral). Also, these results allow us to give an alternative explanation of how acting out of the emotions affects the cognitive evaluation of emotionally significant stimuli.

This article explores the problem of the extent to which recognition of emotions is a universal ability that does not depend on the type of stimulus. The overall design of the study was to measure the accuracy of the subjects’ ability to recognize emotions of others and emotions in music and to analyse how these abilities relate to each other. A positive correlation between the accuracy of emotion recognition in social and music perception was hypothesized. The second hypothesis suggested that the relationship between the accuracy of emotion recognition in music and social perception would be stronger for the listeners of an expert type rather than for listeners of an emotional type.

To measure the accuracy of emotion recognition in social perception the author used Lyusin–Ovsyannikova’s video-test of emotion recognition. To measure the accuracy of emotion recognition in music a special tool similar to video-test was developed. A questionnaire to determine the type of listening perception, based on the audience typology by Adorno, was designed. The results found a positive correlation between the accuracy of emotion recognition in social and music perception, which confirmed the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was not confirmed at the conventional significance level but there was a trend in the expected direction; this can be attributed to the insufficient sample size. In future studies, it is proposed to distinguish between two aspects of the ability to recognize emotions (universal and specific).

The results of numerous medical, psychological and pedagogical studies reported an increase in the frequency of maladaptive disorders in children. Today it is possible to state that the formation of mental disorders and personality pathology largely depends on the characteristics of the environment of the child's upbringing. The mother's behavior, on the one hand, can be considered as a source of development of the child – as the subject of cognitive activity, communication, and self-awareness; on the other hand, it may be the cause of social and psychological ill-health of children, depriving them of emotional stability and security. This article presents the results of empirical studies of parental attitudes of mothers with different levels of personal maturity.

Parental attitudes were assessed by the PARI – Parental Attitude Research Instrument (ES Schaefer, RK Bell). PARI is a multidimensional questionnaire exploring different sides of the parents’ relationships to the child and family life. Personal maturity was measured by the Questionnaire of personal maturity by YZ Gilbukh. The study was conducted on mothers of young schoolchildren in the city of Izhevsk. The 104 subjects were aged 27–41 years old.

This study enabled us to formulate the following conclusions. Most of the subjects showed a satisfactory level of personal maturity. Parental attitudes of mothers with a satisfactory level of personal maturity show a great desire to suppress aggression in the child. The minority of mothers with high personal maturity showed a lack of authoritarianism in relation to their children; they encourage their children, allowing them to acquire their own experience. Mothers with a low level of personal maturity are overprotective; they suppress the will of a child, try to protect children from difficulties, and deliver an image of a sacrificing mother.

This article provides a brief analysis of the results of studies addressing the link between developmental synaesthesia and characteristics of cognitive processes and creative abilities. The author gives a definition of this phenomenon, typical for Russian and foreign psychology. The article compares the experimental data related to synaesthetes obtained by different groups of foreign researchers. On the basis of modern discoveries it is proposed to clarify the psychological status of the phenomenon in question.

Data on synaesthesia obtained from psychophysical methods and techniques of neuroimaging (instrumental materials) provide convincing evidence that synaesthesia should be distinguished from a number of phenomena of memory, hyper-imagination and other accented qualities. Synaesthesia is present in more than 4% of the population and there are about 70 different varieties of synaesthesia associated with different stimuli and sensory responses. Studies of sensory characteristics of individuals with synaesthesia indicate a greater sensitivity of the modality related to synaesthetic reactions. The researchers hypothesize that the increased excitation of the certain sites may be the source of "noise" that enhancesc neuronal activity, which can lead to the emergence of conscious synaesthetic photisms (sensory reactions characteristic for each case).

The author gives examples of various studies in this area, in which researchers respond to the questions of the characteristics of synesthesia depending on the attention dynamics, the relationship of this phenomenon with more efficient memorization, early speaking and reading skills, phenomenal eidetic perception, image memory, high spelling ability and musicality. Based on the analysis of the results of such studies the need for further research in the phenomenon of synaesthesia is acknowledged.