2019. vol. 16. No. 1

Two cases of user-environment mismatch and tensions as well as ways and modes of the users’ adjustments to strictly pre-defined physical environments are presented and discussed in the article. The first case is historical – it analyses consequences of a mass housing program in the former Soviet Union where tens of millions of families coming from very different cultural and social backgrounds had to adjust their everyday life to extremely standardized physical settings. Using the results of the study carried out during 1978-1985 in several Soviet cities, the main areas of tensions and sources of discomfort reported by residents, are described and discussed. The second case focuses on a recent trend in workplace design called activity-based offices representing work environment where employees don’t have their own (fixed, personalized) workplaces but are supposed to move from one zone to another, depending on the task or activity they are involved in. A study of activity based offices carried out in Estonia in 2018, indicates that employee’s participation in the planning and designing of their work environment may help them better adjust to a novel and unusual workplace layout. The message from the both cases is that a better communication between planners and end-users as well as collaboration between them may help to reduce misunderstandings and the user’s dissatisfaction with the physical environment where people have to live and work. 

Although the positive effect of nature connectedness (NC) on eudaimonic and hedonistic wellbeing is confirmed by numerous studies, the question of intrapersonal processes that determine such an impact remains open. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis points to the evolutionary background of NC, as this can be considered pre-trust as an evolutionarily formed trust to the ecological world, to life in its diverse manifestations (Petzold, 2012). It is suggested that pre-trust sets a vector of positive comprehension on what happens while NC actualizes pre-trust, thereby launching a ‘system of psychological wellbeing maintenance’. The hypothesis that trust is a mediator between NC and psychological well-being was tested in two studies. Multiple regression and mediation analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied. Study 1 (the sample comprised 232 Ukrainian university students) confirmed the model of the NC influence on positive functioning (Ryff's Psychological well-being scale and Hardness test were applied) with trust as a mediator. Study 2 (the sample comprised 276 Ukrainian and Belarusian university students) showed that a latent variable manifested by trust and a sense of coherence index mediated the relationship between NC and subjective well-being. It is shown that trust in oneself is included in support of positive functioning, while subjective wellbeing is supported by experiencing the meaningfulness of life events. Limitations of the studies and their implications for conservation psychology are discussed.

In this article types of thinking – mythological, totemic, formal, logical, associative, figurative, and abstract – are theoretically analysed regarding their possible contributions to ecological attitudes. The value and uniqueness of each type of thinking as a way of knowing the world is emphasized. The continuity, complication, and evolutionary character of the types of thinking (that are in a certain hierarchical relationship) are described. The potential for all types of thinking to be presented in each person is specified. It is noted that each phenomenon (a situation, an event, or a subject) can be considered from the angle of different types of thinking: it will only enrich the perspective and complement the knowledge of it. The possible contribution of each type of thinking to ecological education is described. It is emphasized that the types of thinking are conscious or unconscious tools, the application of which is possible and necessary in order to clarify reference points and triggers that form the basis of ecological behavior, as well as to help to a person of any age to learn to think integrally and systematically. Understanding the types of thinking will assist people in their search for their personal sense of sympathetic behavior to the environment.

In a questionnaire study with N = 1730 participants aged from 11 to 72 years (M = 20.4, Me = 19, SD = 6.96), 60% female, we developed the Relevance of the Home Environment Questionnaire (RHEQ) aimed at measuring parameters of the home environment as the inhabitants’ eco-social resource. Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the seven-factor structure of the questionnaire was uniquely formulated. The scales were titled as follows: Privacy, Potential, Self-presentation, Ergonomics, Home detachment, Plasticity, and Historicity. Consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) of scales ranged from .91 to .94. Age trends in four out of seven scales were found. Potential scores were higher in women, while Home detachment – in men. Content validity was investigated by comparison of home relevance scores in students living in their own homes or dormitories. Convergent validity was explored by measuring correlations of the scales with the Functionality of the Home Environment Questionnaire and the Home Attachment Scale. All psychometric properties are satisfactory. Data was discussed with regard to possible applications in research, expertise, and psychotherapy. 

Environmental identity is a self-concept that incorporates and is defined by a relationship with nature. In the current paper the concept is investigated in three empirical studies using the Environmental Identity (EID) scale. Study 1 (n = 222) was devoted to validating the Russian version of the EID scale. Along with the EID scale, we measured environmental attitudes with the New Environmental Paradigm and Global Awareness of Consequences scales. In line with the original version, the Russian version has a one-factor structure and a good internal consistency (α = .88), and is positively connected with environmental concern, global awareness of consequences, egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values. Study 2 (n = 94) investigated the connection between EID and attitudes toward the plant world using the People and Plants questionnaire. EID predicted all variables describing people’s attitudes towards plants: Joy, Aesthetics, Experience of Interaction with Plants, Closeness to Nature, and Ecology. Finally, Study 3 (n = 200) examined the connection between EID and empathy with nature and people. The Dispositional Empathy with Nature and Interpersonal Reactivity Index scales were used. It was revealed that EID was positively connected and contributed to both types of empathy, more strongly impacting empathy with nature. It is concluded that the Russian version of the EID scale is a valid and reliable instrument, andthe EID concept seems to relate to a more general ability to connect with things external to oneself. Hence, it has the potential to be helpful in forming psychotherapeutic programs and in designing restorative environments. 

This paper shows that wise young adults formulate phenomenological intuitions about their relationship to nature that contain many references to advanced modern conceptions of life and ‘core cognition’. Enactive cognition – summarized as “being by doing”, focuses on a living agent’s ability to remain alive through the selection of proper ‘behaviors’ from the set of coping and co-creating behaviors. Co-creating agents satisfy their immediate needs while improving the quality of the environment on which their need satisfaction depends. They contribute to a thriving environment in which long-term need satisfaction is greatly facilitated. We refer to this skill as ‘agent adequacy’ that we associate with wisdom. Inadequate agents continually cope with need satisfaction. They might end up in a ‘coping trap’ where their coping strategies gradually degrade the habitat on which their long-term viability depends. In doing so, they lock themselves in an endless cycle of marginal need satisfaction. We propose concise and precise formulations of three fundamental concepts of the agent-environment relation: adequacy (the ability to satisfy needs in the short and long term), connectedness (referring to a personal bond with other agents or nature as a whole that is experienced as mutual), and beauty (that derives from the environment’s ability to produce fragile perfection that is a measure of environmental quality). Analysis of our interviews showed that our (rather wise) group of respondents addressed all three fundamental concepts. We conclude that our theoretically derived agent-environment framework is exemplified by the human-nature relation.

The paper discusses the philosophical critique of psychology in France 1940‒50’s in the light of the psychologism dispute and on the ideas of G. Politzer, J.-P. Sartre, D. Lagach, G. Canguilhem, M. Foucault. The productivity of the terminology of the «psychologism dispute» to the French situation and the national specifics of critique are shown. The author demonstrates that psychologists and philosophers confront each other not directly, but in the field of philosophical anthropology; here psychology pretends to occupy not the place of philosophy, but the place of the basic humanitarian discipline. In France philosophical critique of psychology develops later than in Germany; a longer process of separating psychology from philosophy is the cause of it. The paper shows a chronology of development of psychology as a two-stage process of its institutionalization as a science (1870-1940s) and a specialty (1940-2000s). A peak of philosophical criticism is the 1940s-1950s: the decade when psychology receives the right to a licentiate. Psychologism in France of 1940‒50’s is connected with psychology’s claim to become the basis of anthropology. Antipsychologism, developed within the framework of philosophical critique of psychology, was the attempt to defend the philosophical status of anthropology and to prove that anthropology can comprehend a person as integrity if keep its philosophical foundations. Philosophers accentuate two problematic points of psychology: 1) lack of integrity, multidirectional theories and explanatory schemes, 2) pre-scientific or mythological nature of its postulates. They regard philosophical criticism as propaedeutic to anthropology (materialistic or existential) and interpret psychology as the starting point of a new Kantian project and a new philosophy of science (as a science of man). The author marks in this movement the vector “Politzer – Sartre – Lagache – Canguilhem – Foucault” and analyzes in detail their criticism.

The article investigates acquisition of mathematical knowledge in collaboration with an adult as it is exemplified by preschoolers’ learning to count on the number line. A qualitative analysis of the eye-movements reveals the diversity of possible strategies in determination of a number on the number line. The developmental experiment discloses the mechanisms of emergence of these strategies in children. The quantitative comparison of the adults’ strategies, the strategies, which are involved in the teaching-learning process, and the strategies that the children used after the learning stage demonstrates the process of development (χ2= 44, 936; p<0,001). We distinguished the statistically significant differences between the stages in the ratio of counting up versus down along the number line and in the ratio of counting from versus towards the target point. The results demonstrate that children’s strategies after the learning stage are more similar to the adults’ inherent strategies than to the strategies that were introduced by the adults during the teaching stage. The analysis of the videos of shared activity that was synchronized with the eye movements showed that the adults demonstrated the basic strategy to the children at the teaching phase as they guided children’s perception by their pointing gestures and speech. However, the adults did not expose the ideal form, namely the diversity of their own strategies during their teaching. Nevertheless, the children were able to supplement the given teaching/learning formof counting from zero up along the number line to the target point with a variety of strategies by themselves, relying on their coherent notion of the number concept. The strategy that required the sequence-to-proportion shift was the only one that children were not able to constitute by themselves. According to our results, the ideal, cultural form of perception exists in the latent form, and a child needs to re-constitute it in their own practice. The children rely on the basic strategy and enrich this strategy as they include it in the integral conceptual knowledge about numbers. The results enrich our understanding of microgenesis of mathematical knowledge during the collaboration with an adult and open perspective on learning as an active reinvention of ideal form on the ground of cultural practice.

Executive functions could play an important role in insight problem solving, however their character, content, and pattern of dynamics may significantly differ from the role of executive functions in non-insight problems. We employed a dual-task paradigm with probe-tasks to track the dynamics of executive functions load in working memory. Two experiments in which we investigated the dynamics of executive functions load in insight and non-insight problems with simultaneous implementation of the Eriksen flanker test are described. Differences in the dynamics of various executive functions in insight problem solving were not revealed. But we found that the dynamics of reaction time in the probe-tasks differs between insight and non-insight problem solving. The results reveal that insight problem solving demands fewer executive resources, but the executive functions load is significantly greater than the baseline. Also, we found that various phases of insight problems require different amount of executive resources. The non-insight problems featured a significant executive functions load after the phase of reading the problem. In insight problem solving we observed an improvement of probe-tasks performance after the phase of reading the problem in the middle of the problem solving process. We speculate that this result reveals an impasse phase that is related to an executive functions load decrease. Surprisingly, we observed a significant increase in the executive functions activity immediately prior to the awareness of a solution. It might be due to controlled solution processing after noticing new elements of a problem that lead to the final solution.

In the task of reciting objects belonging to lexical-semantic categories (category members), participants recite the members of some categories faster than the members of another. Results obtained in the studies on this task suggest that the degree of clusterization of categories’ members may be the factor, which causes this difference between categories: categories, which members are grouped better have an advantage. To verify this suggestion, categorical norms for Russian language, which contain data about the average numbers of categories’ members recited by participants per unit of time, and about the clusters in categories, which affect participants’ responses, were used. Data on 22 categories (Precious Stone, 4-footed Animal etc.) were analyzed; for each of them the number of clusters with pair proximity above 3 was calculated; this number was used as a measure of degree of clusterization. It turned out that the categories significantly vary with respect to this measure: while for two categories (Precious Stone, Carpenter’s Tool) it is zero, for four others (4-footed Animal, An Article of Clothing, A Relative, A Bird) it is above 10. The correlation between degree of clusterization and the mean number of category members generated was .838; p<.001. This result is consistent with the suggestion about the role of degree of clusterization of the members of lexical-semantic categories as a factor of the speed of recitation of objects belonging to it. However, other differences in structure of lexical-semantic categories may be such factors; in particular, a type of this structure may play a part.

The creativity phenomenon attracts the researchers’ attention, but the main characteristics of the creative personality have not been determined yet. In a number of studies creative personality is associated with such features as autonomy, enterprise, radicality, openness to experience and neuroticism (Lubart, 2000. The paper offers analysis of theories and studies devoted to the relationship between creativity, character traits and conflict behavior. Based on the review, the main research question was formulated as the need to extend data on the conflict behavior of the creative person to the sample of employees of organizations, as well as provide comprehensive analysis of the relationship between creativity, character traits and employee values. The aim of the paper is to study the relationship between creativity, values, personality traits and conflict personality behavior. Based on the concept of creativity as divergent thinking of D. Guilford (1950), a correlation study was conducted on a sample of 720 people (397 women and 323 men). Positive correlation is observed with values of independence and achievement, and negative correlation - with values of modesty and conformism. The connection with the Big Five factors of extraversion and openness to experience was low-level. Also, creativity is positively associated with coping strategies of decision-making, taking responsibility and distancing, and negatively - with the search for social support, avoidance and positive reassessment. The results of the study offer an empirical model of the connection between creativity, values, the Big Five factors and coping strategies. The research results can be applied in various business processes of assessment and personnel management.