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Tatiana Kornilova1
  • 1 Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1 Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation

Editorial (in Russian)

2014. Vol. 11. No. 4. P. 15–18 [issue contents]

The classic problem of the unity of intellect and affect (L.Vygotsky) is being reinterpreted in the new area emerging during the last decade — that is, the psychology of uncertainty. The topics developed quite autonomously (academic intelligence, emotional intelligence, personal qualities of tolerance and intolerance of uncertainty, risk tolerance, rationality, moral consciousness of the person, etc.) have been inextricably linked within the study of the regulation of the personal choice. The fact that the common hallmark of the psychological regulation of choice, or decision-making, is the need to overcome uncertainty, not only brought on by situational characteristics, but also the subjective uncertainty that is associated with the properties of the person (his systems of knowledge, personal values, individual and psychological characteristics). In foreign psychological studies the concepts of decision-making and choice function in the form of two main terms 1. And in one and the same book name one term can be used in the title, while the other is preferably used (Hasti, Dawes, 2010). In experimental work the understanding of the situation of choice as a closed task as opposed to open problems (which are better known in the psychology of thinking) is an important aspect. Uncertainty situations require from the person to resolve them through his own efforts, involving both mental activity and personal contribution. The construction of an image of the situation and extending the definition of objectives and alternatives, forecasting and assessment of the impact, the choice itself (from given or constructed by the man himself alternatives) — all these stages and processes mediating decision-making assume the subject relying on its full intellectual and personal potential, in which the cognitive and personal aspects may be only relatively determined. Humans predict not only the development of the situation as a result of their choice of an alternative, but also the personal cost of the decision taken, including the assessment “who I become as a result of this choice of mine.” Personality does not only reflect on but it also experiences the situation of choice. Even if all the alternatives are known the choice criteria are given, it remains unknown what decision will be taken by a particular person, what criterion will dominate in the hierarchy of possible subjective justifications of choice. In psychology there are cognitive and behavioral. And each of them has contributed to revealing of the regulatory role of various processes (from thinking to personal self-determination). Our research group set a goal to return to the idea of an integrated regulation of choice. A multiple multi-level model of regulation human decisions in uncertainty conditions was formulated and the hypothesis of the openness of dynamic regulatory systems of choice was substantiated, which implies both a dynamic hierarchization of processes, mediating the choice and an opportunity to enter the dominating level of any process (of both cognitive and personal regulation). The selection of articles offered to the reader is united by a certain aspect of considering this unity — the connection of the personal attitude to uncertainty and emotional intelligence, on the one hand, and the choice preferences, on the other. Apart from the community of psychodiagnostic techniques the methodological paradigm involved the use of verbal tasks and opportunities of prompts. In one case, possible prompts could be regarded as using supra-individual knowledge. The subject could receive them within a computerized procedure of choice in verbal tasks involving or not involving the use of specialized knowledge. This aspect is represented in the article by T.Kornilova. In addition to extending of the field of awareness the procedure included changes in decision-making positions “for oneself” and “for another” (for other people). The study showed that the experimental factor significantly affected the detected connection of tolerance and intolerance of uncertainty, emotional intelligence and the time of reflection in a situation of choice. In another study presented in the article by E.Krasnov and M.Chumakova, the prompt looked like a picturesque sweep of the emotional context of the situation development. In this paper a new approach to the procedure of analyzing the prompts use was used. The approach emphasized the regulatory aspect of the emotional context account in the personal choice, leading or not leading to the resolution of a given situation of uncertainty. Firstly, the Method of Emotional Prompt (MEP) combines the analysis of free personal choices and the orientation on the emotional context of the situation after it is revealed in the picture, demonstrating its evolution (after the planned alternative). Secondly, the picture prompts remove the problem of identifying emotions as they are clearly expressed; i.e. the emphasis is on identifying the decision point when after receiving a prompt, the very account of emotional information is either involved or not involved in the regulation of decision-making. Thirdly, in the research scheme the diagnosed personality characteristics of tolerance or intolerance to uncertainty and emotional intelligence are considered in connection with the characteristics of the personal choice in the verbally given situations that, when a supposed alternative is specified, are revealed through the pictorial development of events. Here for the first time the results of the prompt impact are analyzed on the basis of construction of integrative indicators of choices. Such complexity of research procedures is justified because personal characteristics and choices in situations are directly connected only through one scale in the MSCEIT test. However, integrative indicators of decision-making allow estimating both the efficiency of emotional prompts and ecological validity of the tasks themselves in the MEP. The work of T.Kornilova and I.Chigrinova, also performed on the materials of the verbal tasks, considers connections or tolerance and intolerance to uncertainty and emotional intelligence to the levels of moral consciousness of the person. On the basis of specially designed tasks, half of which involved the use of emotional intelligence, and the other half — the Machiavellian use of another person (for one’s own purposes), or the rejection of manipulation, predictors of personal choice were identified. It was shown that the levels of moral development of personality are more significant predictors in situations of interpersonal interaction. Earlier the role of tolerance and intolerance to uncertainty as predictors of creativity was shown (Kornilova, 2010b); connections of self-assessment of intelligence as based on the implicit theories of intelligence and presenting the dialogic identity of the person were determined (Kornilova, Novikova, 2011). The article by E.Pavlova continued to consider connections of tolerance to uncertainty and creativity and self-esteem, measured both by a direct self-assessment method and by a questionnaire aimed at identifying the implicit theories of creativity. Tolerance to uncertainty was the predictor of scales that assess different aspects of implicit theories of creativity ( in the new questionnaire it was the implicit theories of creativity). The trust to intuition turned out to be associated both with this personal property and with the implicit theories of creativity. The articles show the picture of multiple and multilevel personal regulation of choices and productive (creative) decisions of a person specific to different samples and conditions, but in general, showing the link of the attitude to uncertainty in the functioning of a unified intellectual and personal potential of the person whose decisions are mediated by common sense.

(Footnote 1) I am not considering the German Entscheidungen and the English Decising as options translated into Russian as “solutions” and distinguishing the context of the choice of decisions with respect to the context of problem solving.

Citation: Kornilova T. (2014) Vstupitel'noe slovo [Editorial]. Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics, vol. 11, no 4, pp. 8-12 (in Russian)
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