2020. vol. 17. No. 3

The article discusses the methodological problems of psychology, in particular, the problem of scientific explanation. Insufficient coverage of this problem in the Russian scientific literature is noted. The authors turn to the results of foreign studies, devoted to the problem of scientific explanation. The following areas of research in this field are determined: conceptualization and definition of this concept, its place in the system of methodology of science and psychology, description of application cases; various models, approaches, schemes of explanation (based on means and result; phenomenological, componentless, mechanistic and functional; reductionism, mechanistic analysis, explanatory pluralism, theory of dynamical systems, information theory) of psychological phenomena, facts, research results; methods and techniques of explanation (instantiation, deductive-nomological method, inference to the best explanation, reification, functional abstractionism, functionalization, schematic proof, explanatory appeal, theory of explanatory consistency); correlation and comparison of the two leading types of explanations in psychology - mechanistic and functional, determining their specificity, as well as the areas in which they are most applicable and effective; analysis of the problem of explanation in various fields of psychology (behaviorism, evolutionary psychology, social psychology); discussion of the problem of pluralism of explanatory models in psychology as an acknowledgment of the complexity of the mind and mental phenomena. The authors note that foreign psychological research deals with specific issues of theoretical and applied problems, but does not engage in theoretical and methodological restructuring of the entire system of psychology. The importance of discussing scientific explanation is grounded in relation to its potential for solving urgent methodological problems of psychology.

There is a tendency in contemporary psychology to intensify research on creativity. Numerous theories and models examine this phenomenon. An important direction in creativity research is the identification and analysis of psychological factors, which inhibit creative thinking. One of them is functional fixedness. This phenomenon has attracted researchers’ attention for a long time. On the other hand, it should be examined in more depth because human life is changing intensively in contemporary world. Functional fixedness restricts person's creative abilities and supports the stereotypical way of thinking. This concept was introduced by K. Duncker (1945), who considered functional fixedness as one of the most powerful "antagonists" of creative thinking. In academic literature, numerous synonyms of this term have been introduced, such as  “problem-solving set” (Kearsley, 1975), "rigidity" (Leach, 1967), "difficulty in re-structuring" (Wertheimer, 1959). At the same time, there is a lack of research systematizing results of the classic theoretical and empirical studies on functional fixedness. The present study seems to partially fill this gap. The authors reveal and analyze the most important aspects and factors of creative thinking, which can help to understand the nature and negative role of functional fixedness in creative thinking. Different definitions of functional fixedness, most influential theories and models addressing this phenomenon, as well as forms of manifestation of functional fixedness in various spheres of individual productive activity are considered. This work is continued by the analysis of psychological methods to loosen functional fixedness.

Self-awareness is the ability of a subject to discriminate itself from other subjects and the external world as a whole. Self-awareness is а key component of consciousness, the latter being the highest level of phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the mind. Traditionally, the technique of self-recognition in the mirror is used to study the preconditions of self-awareness in animals. For a long time, it has been an almost common belief that the ability of self-awareness is closely related to the ability to understand others, and therefore, to the social nature of consciousness. However, recent empirical evidence suggests that this ability may be discovered in the animals with qualitatively different mind and life activities than humans and species that are systematically close to humans. We describe our specific approach to the study of the self-awareness phenomenon. Basing on generalization of a number of data we conclude that any animals take into account the characteristics of their bodies when regulating their behavior. In order to avoid terminological confusion, we use the term self-reflection to denote this phenomenon. The author also highlights the main trends in the evolution of self-reflection.

Cognitive biases emerging in judgments and decision-making become an increasingly discussed topic and cause controversy and debate regarding the psychological mechanisms and underlying theories. Questions regarding rational decision-making and deviations from rationality arise in many areas of life and are of a particular interest to marketers, politicians, designers and people who bear high responsibility in making important decisions. Currently, more empirical evidence for these deviations appears in studies of cognitive biases in the areas, but also the theoretical model and the basis of the underlying mechanisms continue to be refined. This article is devoted to the latest trends regarding two-process theories of thinking and the subsequent criticism. The development of these theories and their varieties is described in detail and the main trends based on these theories are highlighted. One of the aspects in current trends of the two-process theories is the study of individual differences on the use of the two systems and the level of tendency to cognitive biases. Another direction is the practical component, which is based on these effects. In a digital environment, cognitive-biases-based techniques are actively used by interface designers. The article presents nudging and boosting methods in which with the help of changes in the digital environment the user's choice can be directed towards a certain alternative, while the actual choice remains. These techniques also have critical comments on the appropriateness of the application and their actual effectiveness, which requires additional theoretical and practical research in this area.

The article is devoted to identifying the socio-psychological reasons that formed in pre-revolutionary Russia, which in Soviet times became the basis for creating a huge city housing stock in the country, filling almost sixth of the planetary land with identical multi-storey sectional buildings, almost entirely consisting of small apartments in terms of area and number of rooms. It seemed that the technology of mass standard model design will provide a solution to this problem in the shortest possible time and will become the basis of the spatial image of housing in the future. Several decades of active construction of identical cheap residential buildings caused an avalanche-like increase in the number of “waiting lists” - households that ought to be relocated to new, more spacious apartments, in accordance with the hygiene standard established by the state. An analysis of the construction practice in Russia, based on the regulation the constraints of the geometric parameters of the apartments, indicates the cyclic nature of the state housing policy development, which largely depends on the dynamics of the ownership structure in the country. The established regularity excludes the possibility of improving the quality of city apartments by using the concept of full socialization or full privatization of all housing resources of the country. Studies of mass urban housing, conducted in the mid-80s, showed that the main reason for the need to change the geometric characteristics of a city apartment is a change in the lifestyle of households.

Dispositional authenticity is a narrow personal trait, describing personal ability to live in accord with their inner self and resist the external influences. The tripartite model of authenticity comprises three components: authentic living, not accepting external influence and lack of self-alienation. In the current research we performed two empirical studies, aiming to mark dispositional authenticity on a map of personality. The objectives of these studies were 1) to clarify the ontological status of authenticity as a trait by correlating it with other personality features, 2) to determine the pattern of traits that are most favorable or unfavorable for its manifestation, and 3) to find its possible predictors. We used the Russian version of the Authenticity scale (Wood et al, 2008; adapted by S. Nartova-Bochaver et al., 2020) as a main research instrument. In our first study (n = 271) we used the Russian version of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-140) (Cloninger et al., 1993; adapted by N. Almaev, L. Ostrovskaya, 2005). It was found that Self-Directedness as a character trait is a key predictor of authenticity. Somewhat weaker authenticity can be explained by the features of temperament –low Harm Avoidance and Reward Dependence. Novelty Seeking and Cooperativeness do not play a role in maintaining authenticity. In Study 2 (n = 174) we analyzed the relationship between authenticity and the basic personality traits, measured by the Big-Five Factor Markers (Goldberg, 1992; adapted by G. Knyazev et al., 2010). It was found that authenticity is strongly conditioned by emotional stability (low Neuroticism), while self-alienation is provoked by high Neuroticism and low Extraversion and Consciousness. The relatively weak predictive ability of character and temperament traitstowards to authenticity confirms the assumption that authenticity should be considered as an independent and systemic personal trait.

In line with the Terror Management Theory, recognition of the inevitability of death induces the paralyzing fear. To reduce this fear, people use psychological defences. They demonstrate more positive attitudes towards those who are similar to them, and more negative towards those who are different. Mortality salience influences on attitudes towards individuals and social groups. The goal of the study was to analyse the effect of mortality salience on attitudes towards ‘hostile-oriented’ and ‘friendly-oriented’ outgroups. To examine the effect of mortality salience, we conducted experimental research. Students from two Russian universities (N = 80) participated in the study. Participants completed the online questionnaires to indicate the level of RWA and perceived threat from other countries. A week later, they arrived at the laboratory to take part in a two-factor experiment: 2 (mortality salience) x 2 (type of country). They watched videotapes with reminders of death or without it and, thereafter, demonstrated the level of sympathy, trust, and readiness to interact with inhabitants of the country. The results showed that mortality salience negatively influenced attitudes towards ‘hostile-oriented’ than towards ‘friendly-oriented’ country. This difference was moderated by RWA. After reminders of death, people with low RWA demonstrated the same positions towards ‘friendly’ and ‘hostile-oriented’ countries. At the same time, people with high RWA showed more positive attitudes towards inhabitants of ‘friendly-oriented’ country, whereas more negative towards people from ‘hostile-oriented’ country.

This article is devoted to the poorly studied problem of the formation of professional talent in the conditions of different degrees of freedom in activity and the influence of a person’s low or high motivation for success on this formation. Three degrees of freedom in activity have been identified and described: the low degree of freedom is due to the normative mode of action; the average degree of freedom is due to the combined mode of action from the subject's experience and regulatory instructions; and the high degree of freedom is due to the creation of a new mode of action. The main objective of the study is to describe how the conditions of different degrees of freedom in activity are refracted with internal conditions, which are low and high motivation for success, and various talent structures. The study was conducted on a sample of 54 qualified train drivers using a specialized simulator, which allows simulating three degrees of freedom in activity. The psychological analysis of activity revealed seven abilities ensuring the implementation of activity. Based on the empirical data, it is shown that low, medium, and high degrees of freedom in activity are manifested in different measures of productivity. Low and high motivation for a person’s success in freedom of choice conditions in the activity does not influence the productivity of the activity. Along with this, depending on the low and high motivation for success, different structures of talent in terms of composition and degree of integration under the conditions of different degrees of freedom in the activity are formed. On the one hand, the low and high motivation for success acts as internal determinants, on the other hand, low, medium and high degrees of freedom in the activity act as external determinants for the formation of various talent structures.

The study describes the empirical research on the impact of belief in a just world, acceptance of male normative attitudes and public expectant attitude toward the victim on thevictim blaming in rape or robbery on the part of both men and women. One thousand thirty eight respondents aged 18-70 (630 females) filled out an online survey. This survey included the questionnaire on male attitude norms (Kletsina, Ioffe, 2013), the questionnaire onbelief in a just world (Nartova-Bochaver and others, 2013), which allowed to estimate the level ofbelief in a just world for everyone (general justice) and the level ofbelief in a just world for the self (personal justice), and, at last, the vignette, containing a story either about robbery or rape, with a woman as a victim and a man as a perpetrator. According to the analysis of the obtained data, both male and female respondents put blame on victims of robbery and rape equally; men and women did not differ on victim blaming in cases of robbery in terms of moral evaluation, but men more than women blamed a victim of rape. The results of the stepwise regression analysis showed that in both cases the level of acceptance of male normative attitudes and public expectant attitude make input into the level of victim blaming. The indicator of general justice makes input into the victim blaming in rape only in the subsample of men. The acceptance of both male normative attitudes and public expectant blame reflect the representations of the current social reality, whereas general justice frames the subjective evaluation of this social reality. Therefore, the higher determinacy of the victim blaming by the level of male normative attitudes and expectant blame as opposed to belief in general justice, allows us to assume that people tend more to avoid conflict with social reality than to retain an evaluation of reality as a just one.