2016. vol. 13. No. 1

The deconstruction of the binary model of heteronormative matrix through problematization of its three components: sex, gender and sexual orientation is performed in the present article. The determination of attitude towards corporeality (sex) and sexuality is shown on the basis of the dominant binary discourse. The author cites the results of the study on sexual orientation in three comparison groups: 94 transgender men, who appealed for permission to change their sex, 41 homosexual and 30 heterosexual men. Sexual orientation as a holistic psychological construct includes several subsystems, which are not always coincide in their orientation. The important result was the discovery of a relative independence of the parameter “falling in love” from the orientation of impulse. Correlational analysis showed that attraction to people of own and opposite sex has independent character, may be described as orthogonal and not alternative model for both sensual attraction, fantasies and falling in love. The fact is confirmed that it is exactly gender matrix as a social order that prevails over sexuality of individual, and self-categorization in each group occurs mostly through evaluation of self ex contrario. The mechanism of self-programming and construction of own identity in line with the already chosen model activates, to which the actual behavior is tuned. The urgency of deconstruction of the heteronormative matrix consists of the necessity to show the possibility and legitimacy of coexistence of the many non-identical, but fairly equal in rights meaning models. Their otherness should be considered as something self-sufficient, additional, and not mutually exclusive to any other model of relationships. The weakening of the hard gender dichotomy and the breakdown of the traditional system of gender polarization gives possibility for a personality to acquire and realize gender identity, which is the result of the individual experience and its creative rethinking, of correlation of one’s individual parameters/ desires with cultural models. 

The present text is an attempt to introduce the practitioner psychologist to historical, cultural and social approaches to sexuality from the emergence of sexology as a distinct school of medicine in the end of the XIX century till the 80ies of the XX century. The message of this article is induced by the limited applicability in psychological practice of the dominant discourses of sexuality in virtue of their parochialism and poverty, and the necessity of a more broad understanding of the subject that will allow to step out reductionism and essentialism, which are inherent in those discourses. The article cites the main ideas of the key works, dedicated to critical studies of the sexuality phenomenon: History of Sexualityby the philosopher Michel Foucault, Body and Sexuality by the historian Jeffrey Weeks and Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality by the anthropologist Gayle Rubin are used for polemics; at the intersection of their views appears the understanding of sexuality as a historical, social and cultural construct. Aside is analyzed the shift in the framework of sexology of the focus of attention from sexual practices to personality of the practicing person, and the necessity of the appearance of the figures of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” due to this shift. In accordance with the review of the changes of the notion of sexuality in sociology, culturology and anthropology during the last one and a half centuries, the author comes to the conclusion that on each stage of its development the society builds a specific attitude towards sexuality, depending on current tasks of politics, established societal hierarchy and relations of authority. On the level of practice it implies the necessity for a counseling psychologist to be ready to critically distance him/ herself from social notions of sexuality and to analyze influence of these notions on the processes of formation and development of a particular personality, including his/ her own, in order not to replicate them in the process of his/ her work.

The article presents a review of foreign and domestic publications on psychological problems of homo- and bisexual adolescents and youth, as well as on characteristics of psychological counseling of LGB-adolescents and youth. The authors bring up an important concern of vulnerability of LGB-adolescents and young people in Russia in the XXI century. The authors discuss characteristics of the sociocultural situation, in which LGB-adolescents come to age, analyze risk factors to which LGB-youth is exposed, comparing data of foreign and domestic research, as well as protective factors, the development of which may be secured by psychological counseling of LGB. According to the authors, the factors that heighten risks of development of affective disorders, risky and suicidal behaviors are violence in family and reprobation of family members, violence and reprobation of peers, political and institutional homophobia, bullying, forced coming out, physical violence related to coming out, minority stress, internalized homophobia, social, emotional and informational isolation. Protective factors are open objective and non-stigmatizing information about homosexuality, support of other people, including family members, peers, teachers, LGBT-organizations, positive self-identity, including gender and sexual identity, access to quality medical and psychological help. The authors emphasize that majority of psychological problems, encountered by LGB-adolescents, do not related directly to sexuality and sexual orientation, but isolation, which accompanies LGB-adolescents, may significantly escalate problems, which are typical for adolescent and young age. The article describes general trends and key characteristics of psychological counseling of LGB-adolescents and youth.

The article examines the problem of relationships between people with homosexual and heterosexual identity and their parental family. The contemporary studies on parental reactions on encounter with non-heterosexuality of their children, probable reasons of these reactions, links between psychological health of adult non-heterosexuals and presence or absence of parental support are reviewed. In the empirical part of the article the methodology and the results of the conducted research are described. At the first stage of the study, based on the results of 11 depth interviews, the motives and obstacles were formulated that play role in decision-making on openness with parents about one’s sexual identity. Besides, variants of parental reactions on discovery of non-heterosexuality of the child were formulated. At the second stage of the study online-survey was conducted on 102 adult homosexuals and bisexuals, among them 69 had experience of openness with their parents about their sexual identity – they were offered to choose from the list those motives, obstacles and parental reactions, which were relevant for their situation. According to the results of the research, most typical motives and obstacles for coming-out, as well as parental reactions after the talk about sexual identity of the child were specified. The model of grief, offered by E. Kübler-Ross, was acknowledged as one of the ways to interpret the dynamics of the parental experiences after coming-out of their child. In the existing Russian works this topic is presented in the most generalized form, while the interest in LGBT-research in the Western countries over the last years became significantly higher. In light of the available data on relationships with parental family having impact on psychological health of adult homosexuals and bisexuals, and family relationships per se being important for all participants as the source of support and acceptance, it is necessary not only to conduct further research in this area, but also practically apply the received knowledge.

Despite the growth of negative attitudes to homosexuals in Russia the research into this topic has been extremely scarce. Based on the analysis of social discourse, we have created a pool of items and undertaken three empirical studies aimed to develop and validate the Russian Attitudes to Homosexuals Inventory (RAHI) and investigate the associations of homophobic attitudes with a range of demographic and psychological variables. In Study 1 we used an online sample (N = 1,007) and explored the structure of the item pool, finding 8 factors, 5 of which referred to different dimensions of perceived threat of homosexuals (to individuals, morals, society, Russian culture, and heterosexual lifestyle) and 3 described social strategies directed at homosexuals (criminal punishment, medical treatment, and discrimination vs. protection). The scales were highly reliable (α = .82-.91) and formed a single second-order dimension, labelled general index of homophobia. Negative attitudes to homosexuals were stronger in males, religious respondents, and those heterosexuals who denied having experienced any feelings of same-sex attraction in their life. In Study 2 (paper-based sample, N = 292) we cross-validated the second-order structure of the RAHI. Using hierarchical multiple regression we found that homophobia was positively predicted by authoritarianism and negatively predicted by experience of same-sex attraction and social contact with homosexuals as friends. We also found weaker positive associations of homophobia with religiosity, social identification with gender, masculinity, extraversion, and social desirability, as well as a negative association with openness. In Study 3 we used contrast groups of neutral and anti-homosexual online community members (N = 330 and N = 107) to check the criterion validity of the RAHI. The findings are in line with the existing body of research from other countries, but reveal the culturally-specific features of the content of Russian homophobia (e.g., homosexuality is viewed as a result of Western influence). The RAHI emerged as a valid and reliable tool, which can be used for future Russian-language studies.

The current study was intended to present a current version of the meta-individual world (MIW) theory developed by Dorfman. Its core is the dual-system model. According to it, two systems are specified, namely, System 1 and System 2. One of the systems (System 1) unifies the personality and its closer social setting. Within this system, the personality extends to its closer social setting, making changes in it. Thus, the personality occupies the primary position and the closer social setting occupies the secondary position. This system carries a connection of the closer social setting to the personality. The other system (System 2) also connects the closer social setting to the personality, but in the opposite direction. Within this system, the closer social setting extends to the personality, making changes in it. Here, the closer social setting occupies the primary position and the personality occupies the secondary position. The two systems are distinct, operate in their own right and are relatively independent from one another, although they hold a common personal and social ground. Respectively, two kinds of phenomena are specified, namely, within each system and those under influence of the both systems. Thus, the latter brings dual qualities. In addition, a structuralist view is employed; it is shown on the lines of multidimensionality, namely, agency,possession, perspective-taking, and relatedness.

Knowledge structuring is one of the poorly-studied cognitive processes that significantly affect the learning activity processes as well as professional knowledge sharing communications. The paper describes the main results of the study aimed at investigation of the impact of the individual characteristics of cognitive style in the process of information structuring during learning. The stress is put on the study of the cognitive style parameters, which significantly affect the conceptual design features of hierarchical models (the so-called ontologies) that are important for learning and understanding of the material. The main described results are focused on empirical testing of hypotheses about the impact of the individual characteristics of cognitive style (such as field dependence / field independence, category narrowness / width, impulsiveness / reflexivity) on the individual and collective ontology design features. Some interesting results of the group ontology design work study (in pairs and threesomes) are discussed. They present the relationship between the individual ideas of group members about the domain and the resulting common structure.  The sample consists of the Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University students. The students were tested on the specifics of their individual cognitive styles and after they were asked to create ontologies of the “Computer Science” domain personally and collectively. The obtained results allow to propose some practical recommendations for formation of the efficient groups for collective intellectual work, e.g. data base design, knowledge representation models, business-models and other conceptual structures.

Existing research has shown modality-specific differences in short-term memory performance. Almost all previous studies have manipulated the input information without considering the way it will be used at output. In the current study, participants memorized spatially ordered arrays of letter-like shapes simultaneously shown on a screen, and recalled the stimuli by (i) drawing them on a sheet of paper, (ii) typing them on a keyboard according to a specified item-to-key map, and (iii) pronouncing them aloud using an item-to-letter map suggested by the letter-like items’ appearance. It was assumed that manipulating the output modality using the fixed stimuli set would lead to favoring different encoding strategies and subsequently result in different error patterns. Although visual input seems to be the main determinant of overall error rates in the drawing, typing and pronouncing tasks, less prominent but robust output-related differences between these tasks were also found. The pen and paper copying task showed a significant excess of substitutions called “upside down errors” and incorrect order responses. The typing task showed a significant excess of omissions. The pronouncing task showed a significant excess of mirror errors and the lowest rate of 90-degree rotations. The differences among patterns of errors in the different tasks are consistent with the hypothesized impact of the output modality on the way that visual information is stored in working memory.

The study of parent-child representations across cultures is important in order to obtain a proper understanding of the attributes, size and positioning of such figures as indicators of different interaction patterns across cultures. A thorough base of research evidence for the interpretation of children’s drawings may facilitate work in multicultural educational settings and enhance our understanding of cultural diversity in schools. Italy provides an ideal context for the study of parent-child representations, as the country has witnessed increasing cultural diversity in recent years with the immigration of various ethnic groups. This study examined the extent to which this context influences children’s representations in domains of Cohesion (interpersonal bonding), Similarity (affinity) and Value (spatial relevance) among parent-child figures because these domains inform important representational processes of interpersonal bonding with parents across specific cultures. The Pictorial Assessment of Interpersonal Relationships (PAIR) was used to codify drawings of 326 children with Albanian (n = 59), Serbian (n = 85) and Italian (n = 182) backgrounds. The results showed that in drawings made by Albanian and Serbian children parental figures were drawn similar to and close to the child figure representing their less independent reciprocal stance. The parental figures drawn by Italian children appear bigger and farther apart. Important implications may be derived from the results in facilitating work in multicultural educational settings, by enhancing knowledge regarding cultural diversity in schools.