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In many post-conflict and war-torn countries governance issue is intricately linked to multifaceted aspect. Because rebuilding governance and re-establishing trust in government does not only need the adoption of specific strategies but also reshaping the whole nation from the scratch. Some nations may need a large scale of reforms to ensure effective governance whilst other may require narrow reforms to address small deficiencies. Considering the paper’s heavy reliance on secondary information sources collected from articles published in credible scientific journals, and diverse working papers, governmental reports, book chapters, conference papers, and online sources, the paper used content analysis techniques. Moreover, in order to address the problem multiple factors such as politics, institutional reforms, economic initiatives, human capital development, and the need for expenditure in education in war-torn countries are inspected. The study reveals that in the case of politics and institutional reforms, a war-torn nation must emphasize a transparent political system and solid legal framework that makes it simpler to choose, oversee, and replace persons in positions of responsibility, also a favorable ecosystem that promotes prosperity and growth through solid legislation and different governmental branches. The second crucial measure is reanimating the economy by taking advantage of the agriculture and banking sector since they are the least affected by the war. The third measure is to allocate specific funds to education before any other sector. Besides that, through education and training, war-torn countries will achieve a skilled workforce. Finally, the analysis will offer war-torn nations tangible proof of which socioeconomic factors, reforms, and policies to implement in order to achieve effective governance.

The article presents approaches to defining quality criteria for pedagogical experimental research. Particular attention is paid to the evidence-based approach in pedagogy. It is argued that pedagogical research today is an integral part of the educational process and dissertations on pedagogical sciences. However, it should be noted that there are problems with the quality of such studies, which constitute a significant share of the total number of defended dissertations, and this causes an urgent need to develop methodological principles and criteria for assessing their quality. But it is not every pedagogical research that is the subject of this paper: its focus is on the methodological foundations of experimental pedagogical research or simply experimental research in pedagogy, which often do not meet the requirements of the scientific method. The authors analyzed the main topics of pedagogical research in Russia and abroad. The key results and conclusions of the study are the complex requirements for dissertations as a scientific product and pedagogical research, which determine the algorithm for obtaining proven, reliable data used in science. It is concluded that experimental research in the field of pedagogy should be carried out in accordance with the requirements for all empirical research. In particular, special attention is paid to ethical issues of pedagogical research and procedures for implementing the experimental method.

At present the problem of the integration between the higher education and the sphere of labor has become particularly urgent. It is noted that the attempts earlier made by a number of authors to solve the problem of the integration between the higher education and the labor sphere by combining educational and professional standards, as well as by harmonizing the requirements of the labor market for the qualifications of specialists and the competencies of graduates of higher education are facing significant difficulties. In this paper, we consider individual educational programs as one of the mechanisms of combining the higher education and labor. The analysis of the emerging differences between the higher education and the sphere of labor in the context of different educational models has been conducted. Thus, for example, within the framework of the professional model of the educational process organization, the possibilities of building individual educational programs are limited by the amount of labor intensity of the variable part of the educational program according to the field of study or subject specialism. At the same time, we are talking about professional individual educational programs, which are based on the processes of the formation of professional subjectivity of the student and the formation of his/her professional image. Such individual educational programs not only orient students on a certain type of work activity already at university, but also guarantee a well-grounded choice of the future profession. The paper focuses on the significant impact of the individualization of professional and professionalization of individual educational programs, as well as the multilevel structure of higher education on the nature of the integration of educational programs of higher education and the trajectories of professional development of young professionals. It is emphasized that the adaptation of students to the educational process, built on the principles of individualization of educational programs, is a key point of interdisciplinary psychological and pedagogical problems of the development of creative abilities of students and is accompanied by the mastery of new skills.

The article considers the use of teaching methods in research methodology class for Master students doing the course in English. The author aims at defining the role and significance of the course in teaching Master students at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) and sets the following objectives: to identify conceptual barriers in perceiving research methodology, work out the algorithm of work aimed at building research skills of Master students; analyze the results of pilot teaching. The research methods used in working at the paper are as follows: questionnaire and analysis (in analyzing the results of pilot teaching and content analysis of the methodological part of several Master and PhD open access theses). The author uses activity and competence based approach in the combination with the didactic principles of visualization, systematization, consistency and accessibility. The paper analyzes the requirements of State Federal Education Standards in part of developing the research component of professionally relevant competences. The author identifies cognitive difficulties of perceiving theoretical and methodological material; builds the algorithm of work with conceptual apparatus offering a number of exercises aimed at forming research competence and creating simulation research discourse.

To present Russian science at the international level scientists should possess certain specific skills. However, research works in an integrative nature of academic writing recognize the skills that are common for various research fields and specific for academic context. Some works are currently investigating methods to develop academic skills, while a few papers are devoted to the problem of assessing the outcomes. Traditionally the quality of an academic text is measured by the requirements to text organization, context and language proficiency. However, this model does not form a unity until a new idea is introduced into the process of teaching and assessment. The possible solution is to focus on the quality of students’ texts authenticity. Academic text authenticity indicates to what extent the initial norms of authentic academic writing - in organization, context and language use - are modified by students belonging to a different writing culture. The paper defines the category “authenticity” for academic texts and presents examples of assessing the text quality with a set of descriptors. The results could be implemented in professional language studies and in the postgraduate training of students aimed at publishing the results of their research work.

This paper provides the view-point on cultural self-determination of a personality (CSD) in light of humanistic philosophy, the basics of which have been under the authors’ investigation since the 90s until now. One of the most significant points of the authors’ present-day research is to show the possibilities and perspectives of CSD for adaptation of the humanitarian approach towards ‘education through life’ for students; the latter is of paramount importance for the new generation, for our compatriots, and for our country, because along with this idea, the research under discussion paved the way for thoughts of making the most of the dual-purpose thinking of a personality in the educational process as a whole. The authors of the article consider the idea that the problem lies in the fact that Chaos is the foundation of the Universum, time and matter (objects) are not permanent constants, and Chaos is always a great variety. Reaching a sort of stability, Man finds himself in the situation of diversity. Then, there comes an existential crisis, which resolves in dualistic thinking. Thus, the authors of the article see in CSD one of the most significant mechanisms and ways out of the existential crisis, in which we, the people of the global communication-information civilization, have to live and work, to study new realia of the world and teach the new generation how to be adaptable and creative in the society of instability. From the view-point of the authors’ pedagogical theory of CSD (2003), the paper also covers the technological aspects of providing the conditions for positive student motivation in the academic process, the basics of which depend on the intellectual component of a personality. The latter is based on the ability of both students and teachers to make most of the languages of the educational environment for fruitful communication in the light of the philosophy of Dialogism (M.M. Bachtin, V.S.Bibler, M.Buber, Yu. M.Lotman, М.S. Каgan, etc.).

The paper presents results from language testing of 70 Roma children from Bulgaria - pupils of grade 1, studying in one of the biggest Roma settlement’s schools in Sofia, “Fakulteta” district. The children were tested using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The test measures language comprehension and language production of the children at the beginning and end of the school year. Between the first and second testing, the teaching methodology in instruction for the children was changed - a Roma assistant teacher whose task was to use the mother tongue of the children as a communicative tool was introduced to the classes. The results of the children during the second testing were substantially better and they are discussed in the light of the theory of the American anthropologist J. Ogbu, who developed his cultural-ecological theory (CE) in the 1980s. The results of the children are analyzed via dispersion analysis using ANOVA. According to Ogbu’s CE theory, the school success of minority children depends on the attitudes of the society at large and the level of community support. The paper also briefly discusses the reason why the de-segregation of the Roma children and their integration into mainstream schools in Bulgaria has largely proved to be a failure.

The article compares some problems of the person and the personality study in Russian and foreign (primarily US) psychology. The authors describe the phenomenology of the personality as it is perceived and described in a textbook published by the American Psychological Association in 2015. The structure of the Five-Factor model (“Big Five”) as one of the main approaches to the study of personality in foreign psychology and the System-Functional Approach to the personality traits analysis, which embodies many Russian psychology traditions, are briefly presented in the paper. The main results of the comparative study of the curiosity and persistence as system-functional personality traits and the “Big Five” factors (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, consciousness) are described and analyzed. The sample includes 207 first and second-year university students of Linguistics department. The Big Five factors were measured with the Russian NEO Five-Factor Inventory adaptation by S.Biryukov and M.Bodunov, curiosity and persistence as system-functional personality traits were measured with the paper-and-pencil test developed by A.I. Krupnov. The Spearman correlation analysis and factor analysis were used for statistical analysis. The study shows that there are stable correlations between Persistence as a conative personality trait studied within the System-Functional Approach framework and Consciousness as a Five-Factor Model trait, and Curiosity as a cognitive trait and Openness (within the same respective frameworks). Persistence shows closer associations with the factors of the Big Five model than Curiosity. Extraversion and Neuroticism as individual-personal factors characterize a measure of a person’s activeness in the implementation of their personality traits and difficulties in these traits implementation, respectively.

The paper examines the steps to introduce basic translation skills to level 200 students of Russian. It adopts the teacher-student centered approach and employs the theory of equivalence at a superficial level to achieve the intended goal. The aim of the paper is to enhance on students’ language proficiency while at the same time introducing translation skills at the intermediate level.The study is designed to equip students with basic translation skills. It aims at strengthening students’ bilingual competence at the level of written translation as our priority and then oral translation otherwise known as interpretation. It points to the fundamental ingredients needed to be acquired before embarking on the translation task. Main research questions are: a) the steps to introduce and strengthen translation skills to level 200 students of Russian; 2) identifying basic language principles required to do proper translation; 3) relating language to the immediate realities of the student in the introduction process.Based on the experience of introducing basic translation skills to level 200 students of Russian at the University of Ghana, it was concluded that the teacher and student centered approaches are employed to produce acceptable and genuine results.

The paper deals with the influence of modern mass media on the process of a person’s socialization and demonstrates their role in shaping information and communication needs of adolescents. The literature analysis helped to identify that a person’s information and communication needs are manifested in the form of a demand for the form of communication messages proposed by the society and are associated with the information support of the person’s vital substructures (experience, knowledge; focus, interests; forms of communication). The paper presents the results of an empirical study conducted on a sample of adolescents aged 13-15 ( n = 85). It was conducted using a questionnaire focusing on the features of their information and communication needs, and the following techniques: the Psychological Mindedness Scale (H.R. Conte, adapted by M.A. Novikova and T.V. Kornilova), the World Assumptions Scale (R. Janoff-Bulman, adapted by O. Kravtsova), and the Technique of studying the structure of personal maturity (R.M. Shamionov). An analysis of mass media consumption by adolescents showed that the main sources of information for them are television and the Internet. The study demonstrated that girls also read magazines and newspapers and prefer informative materials about fashion and style. They aim at satisfying their educational needs 2.3 times more than boys, whereas boys aim at satisfying needs associated with information on sports and entertainment. In terms of personality traits that determine the effectiveness of socialization, girls differ from boys in that they have a more marked psychological rationality and benevolence towards the world in their personal structure of world assumptions.

A new measure based on Triandis’s horizontal/vertical individualism-collectivism cultural orientation was developed to assess perceived community culture though the lens of horizontal individualism, vertical individualism, horizontal collectivism, and vertical collectivism. In the first step, a qualitative analysis using cognitive interviews showed that item wordings were appropriate to the Russian context, meaningfully accurate, and tangible to participants. In the second step, there was empirical testing of measure with 300 participants of the sociopsychological survey (questionnaire). The results showed that the expected factor structure had acceptable global and local fit of measurement model with the collected data. The measures had measurement equivalence by gender and acceptable indicators of reliability and validity. Comparison of obtained results with those published earlier showed that presented measure of the cultural orientations provided better model fit and indicators than the original measure or its other modifications, adaptations, and translations into Russian. Moreover, the developed measure showed that the assessment results were meaningfully correlated with the individual values of the participants assessed by Schwartz’s basic human values approach. Finally, the measure is particularly useful and can be successfully applied in a variety of studies aimed to study social influence. The questionnaire in English is available at Appendix in the end of the paper.

The influence of constitutional principles on youth consciousness is a fundamental issue. Combined, constitutional and moral principles underlie behavior of young people in the society. They are of great relevance in the process of civil society formation. This paper examines the features of self-actualization of youth in Russia. We conducted a sociological survey of more than 200 students of higher educational institutions, most of them participating in the activities of youth public organizations in various areas: sports, politics, ecology, patriotic education, charity, etc. The survey showed that those who actively realized their talents and abilities and sought to express themselves in science and society were motivated by the constitutional guidelines; they were well aware of the content of legal prescriptions that specify constitutional principles. Many of the young people perceive constitutional principles as guarantees of their legal possibilities that determine the basis for their interaction with other subjects of law. Moreover, it was found that legal and moral values formed in the mind of a young person provide understanding of the content of constitutional principles and affect the behavior of a young person in the process of self-actualization.

The paper is devoted to teaching Russian language to foreign students at the pre-university stage of preparation for study at the main faculties of Russian universities. The ongoing process of general humanization of education at all its stages involves the search for effective technologies and the renewal of the educational paradigm as a whole. The main attention in this work is focused on such controversial issues as the anthropological linguodidactic paradigm, which is based on attention to the personal “project” of self-development of students and synergistic subject-subject interaction between the teacher and foreign students. The undertaken consideration of modern educational discourse, taking into account the ideas of self-development, self-organization and non-linear understanding of cause-and-effect relationships, makes it urgent to develop synergetic anthropology aimed at creating an active educational environment that takes into account the personal characteristics and potential capabilities of all subjects of university educational activities. The undertaken study allows us to conclude that modern linguodidactics, focused on an anthropocentric approach to language, implies the priority of subject-subject relations in pedagogical activity, synergistic interaction of all participants in communication, integration of knowledge, skills and competencies. A value approach to the personality of a student is a condition for his successful entry into the cultural world of the language being comprehended for his subsequent education at a Russian university.

The problems of artificial intelligence from the very beginning of this applied area of science in the mid-20th century have closely intersected with psychological problems, primarily with the psychology of thinking. As experience shows, not only real developments in artificial intelligence but also the discussed prospects for building its working models largely depend on technological progress in the field of computers and software. The paper discusses the changes in representations of heuristics understood as creative thinking and as techniques or rules that are useful for finding solutions to problems. The following issues are specifically considered: the psychological side of the problems of heuristic programming, the similarities and differences between human and computer heuristics, the probability and possible consequences of the singularity phenomenon (understood as the superiority of artificial intelligence over natural one), including the example of the functioning of the community of professional chess players. It is concluded that the progress of computer models and artificial intelligence systems are promising for the positive transformation of the human psyche.

One of the psychological effects of digitalization is the establishment of specific relationships between a person and the cyber environment and its components. The paper presents the results of a study of the emotional component of attitudes towards the components of the digital environment, carried out using emotive-predicate analysis, a new method of computer text processing implemented in TITANIS, an advanced social media text analysis tool. Using this method, it is possible to automatically extract descriptions of emotional situations from texts in which the components of the digital environment are the cause or subject of 68 emotional states. The texts of 2048 online videos posted in the Russian-language segment of YouTube served as the material for the analysis. According to the frequency of occurrence, emotional situations involving various components of the digital environment are quite typical for even thematically irrelevant online discussions. The components of the digital environment mentioned in non-thematic discussions as participants in emotional situations are classified into the following three groups: (1) general concepts of digital technologies; (2) digital devices; (3) activities mediated by digital technologies. The lexemes of the latter group, denoting various aspects of network communication, are included in the vast majority of descriptions of emotional situations involving the components of the digital environment, and six times more often as causes of emotions than as subjects of emotional states. In general, the emotional attitude towards the components of the cyber environment as a whole is characterized as balanced, without a noticeable predominance of negative or positive emotions. However, negative states are more often attributed to the components of the cyber environment as the subjects than as the causes of emotions. The practical significance of the described method of text analysis as a means of assessing the emotional component of attitudes towards the components of the digital environment is determined by the influence that affective reactions of users have on the demand for technical innovations and the direction of their development.

The article generally considers the problem of changes in the functioning of cognitive processes in the context of digitalization. Systematization of the current studies on attention reveals that the vast majority of them are devoted to media multitasking, the results of which are rather contradictory and relate mainly to adolescents and young men. The academic community also analyzes the impact of digital technologies on the attention of students of different age groups, the effect of which is assessed rather as negative. The present study tests the hypothesis of possible changes in the implementation of this cognitive function in adult Internet users. Empirical testing was carried out through a comparative analysis of the attention span in adults who prefer different information coding systems: traditional (“paper”) or digital. The study sample included people aged 37-60 who received higher education in the pre-digital era and are currently engaged in intellectual work; they were divided into two groups: adult readers and adult Internet users (n = 50 each). To clarify the differences in the attention span in adult respondents with different practices of accessing information carriers, a group of students, active young Internet users (n = 50), was also involved. The attention span parameters were assessed using Bourdon’s dot cancellation test. The results of the study statistically reliably show that the adult readers ( p ≤ 0.01) have a higher ability to concentrate attention than active Internet users (both young and adults), keeping it within the normative boundaries that were inherent in people of the pre-digital era.

The new digital environment and the COVID-19 crisis, having drastically increased the amount of teleworking and e-commerce, seem to have benefited GAFAM and digital platforms. Under the current conditions, SMEs and traditional businesses are forced to look for adaptive strategies. Some researchers (e.g. A. Carmeli and G.D. Markman) argue that they SMEs and traditional businesses need to build entrepreneurial and organizational resilience . And it is in this respect, in particular, that psychology can be usefully mobilized to analyze new forms of economic competition. On these grounds, the authors of the paper defend the idea that the SMEs and traditional businesses will be able to exist and assert themselves against their new competitors. In this new interconnected, turbulent and uncertain environment, this self-assertion passes through a strategic and organizational reconfiguration, but also and above all, through entrepreneurial action in its effectual logic which can lead to resilience and, moreover, to antifragility .

The papers deals with the establishment of Confucius Institutions in Russia. The whispered of this institutions try to develop the Chinese educational network all over Russia to propagate Chinese values and languages. Papers analyze the effectiveness of these institutions for Russian educational system.

The present study is focused on identifying the features of group identity as well as the relationship between its components and the level of sports achievements in adolescents and juniors who practice boxing. The paper presents the results of an empirical study obtained on a sample of 360 young boxers (180 teenagers and 180 juniors). The respondents were divided into four groups by gender and age (15-16 years and 17-18 years), equal in number. The study used the Questionnaire of Social (Group) Identity by A.R. Graziani, M. Rubini, A. Palmonari, S. Costarelli, and R.M. Calla (adapted by O.V. Vaskova) and the technique for measuring the effectiveness of sports activities. Statistically significant differences in the parameters of group identity were identified, correlated with the gender and age categories of respondents. Higher indicators of group identity were found in female adolescents and juniors in comparison with male adolescents and juniors. The peculiarity of the age dynamics is that the components of identity increase in adolescent male boxers, while they may tend to decrease in adolescent female boxers. The hypothesis was confirmed that there exists a relationship between the indicators of group identity and the level of sports achievements in adolescent and junior boxers, but it was not only direct and positive. The article presents the prospects for future research on the meaning and role of social identity in the field of sports achievements.

Most people assume studying or working abroad would be stressful - but would one ever think that it could be detrimental to the health? Stress literature relates cross-cultural transactions to the chances of gaining higher levels of chronic stress. This paper reports the results of two studies on international students in Moscow in 2018. Specifically, Study 1 assessed how cross-cultural transactions perceived to affect health state during the first 6 months of their relocation. Study 2 aimed to investigate if the psychological stress linked to relocation to a different country can possibly lead to psychobiological effects of chronic stress. In Study 1, qualitative methods were applied to conduct 21 interviews with international students. In Study 2, a longitudinal pilot study was conducted for 10 foreign students during the first 2-5 (M = 3.6) months of their relocation. Stress related to cross-cultural transactions was expected to affect subjective well-being and health variables. The health state was a relatively silent topic in the interview participants of Study 1. The results of Study 2 showed that the participants had changes in the resting heart rate (RHR) baseline. Perceived chronic stress related to cross-cultural transactions may affect psychophysiological state; however, the affect varies depending on a person. Further research is required for the data consistency and for identifying non-invasive objective risk markers and individual stress pathways, with the goal of identifying at-risk students and providing treatment options before any serious harm is done to their health.

Based on an analysis of archival documents and periodical press materials, the present paper studies the impact of the liberal reforms of Alexander II on the policies of the imperial authorities for the nomadic peoples of the steppe of Ciscaucasia: the Kalmyks, Nogais and Turkmens. The liberal reforms of the 1860s and 1870s had a direct impact on the formation of the national intelligentsia, which during the revolutionary events of the early 20th century led to the rise of the national movement in the empires peripheries and to the struggle for self-determination of the non-Russian populations during the Russian Revolution of 1917. The article reconstructs individual facts and events from the life of the nomadic population under specific socio-economic and political-legal conditions. Using the historical-genetic method, the influence of liberal reforms on the vital activity of the nomadic peoples of the Stavropol province is revealed. The authors focus on the activities of regional authorities during the period under review, which were liberal in nature and carried out in the context of the reforms of Alexander II. The authors conclude that the pre-Caucasus steppe, the territory of the nomadic Kalmyks, Nogais and Turkmens, being the national edge of the Russian Empire and falling under a special system of governance related to the ethnic and religious characteristics of the populations, was not drawn into the orbit of liberal reforms. Meanwhile, a number of measures were approved by the regional executive authorities on the ground, of course, first of all, aimed at satisfying the needs of the imperial policy for incorporating the region into the common imperial space, but at the same time improving the lives of the nomadic peoples of the Stavropol province, in particular in the field of education and legal procedures.

Digitalization is one of the key distinctive features of modern environment and social life. Nowadays more and more functions are transferred to the artificial mind. How effective is the replacement of human activity with computer activity? In the given article, this problem is solved by an example of integration of digital technologies into translation activities. It this paper, emphasis is placed on the quality of machine translation (MT) output of legal texts in the language pair English - Slovak. It studies a Criminal Code formulated in the Slovak language which was translated by a human translator into English and consequently via machine translation system Google Translate (GT) back into Slovak. The back-translation - translation of a translated text back into its original language - as a quality assessment tool to detect discrepancies, mistranslations and inevitable differences between the source text and the target text was used. The quality of MT output was evaluated according to Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) standards with the focus on the dimension of Fluency. The multiple comparisons were applied to determine which issues (errors) in Fluency dimension differ from the others. A statistically significant difference is noticed between Agreement and other issues, as well as between Ambiguity and other issues. The errors in Agreement are related to the differences between the languages: English is considered mostly an analytic language, Slovak represents a synthetic language. The issues in the Ambiguity dimension correlate with the type of the text being examined, since legal texts are characterized by relatively complicated wording and numerous terms; moreover, accuracy and unambiguity need to be preserved. Generally, the MT output is able to provide users with basic information about the text. On the other hand, most of the segments need revision and/or correction; in such cases, human intervention and post-editing is necessary.

The article contains an overview of studies on the problem of emotional and cognitive development of preschool children (43 papers, including 6 in Russian and 37 in English) conducted in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, Germany, Norway, Russia, etc). Special attention is paid to works that consider the reflexive aspect of childrens experiences characterized by duality, inconsistency and multypositionality, which makes it possible to identify and trace the line of dialectical transformations based on preschool childrens emotional experiences. The following statements are formulated as key conclusions: (1) dialectical thinking can be considered as a cognitive mechanism necessary for the analysis of complex, ambivalent and hidden feelings; (2) the unit of cognitive and affective development is experience, which involves reliance on an internal dialectical structure; (3) a two-position perspective in the game activity is a condition for forming preschool childrens dialectical thinking operations, which in turn can become a cognitive mechanism for regulating affect; (4) the cognitive basis of the emotional anticipation phenomenon includes a mental action of changing the alternative, which is in the zone of proximal development of preschool children and allows adults to use it as a mechanism of emotional co-regulation; and (5) philosophical dialog practices, which imply a discussion of problematic-contradictory content with preschoolers and are aimed at forming in them such actions of dialectical thinking as transformation, mediation and change of alternatives. These provisions represent are an effective tool for developing the ability to distinguish dual complex feelings and analyze their causes and consequences. The results of the work can serve as a basis for creating and implementing conceptually new preschool education programs aimed at both the creative and emotional development of children, where dialectical thinking is considered, inter alia, as an ability necessary for regulating affect and helping children to experience and cope with complex conflicting feelings.

This paper clarifies a long-standing ambiguity in the notion of social representations; it provides a clear operational definition of the relation between social representation and individual representation. This definition, grounded in the theory of sets, supports most current empirical investigation methods of social representations. In short, a social representation of an object in a population is the mathematical set of individual representations the individuals of that population have for this object. The components of the representation are the components used to describe this set, in intension in the mathematical sense of the term (in contrast with a definition in extension). Statistical techniques, as well as content analysis techniques, can construct such components by comparison of individual representations to extract commonalities, and that is what classic investigations on social representations indeed do. We then answer the question: how come that, in a given culture, individuals hold individual representations that are so similar to one another?

The necessity of establishing intercultural communication skills in children and young people is growing in the modern world. Expanding, extending the openness and accessibility of the Internet area, where diverse people with varied ideas, interests, and aspirations meet, plays a significant role in this process. Todays youth are aptly referred to as digital aborigines, as they navigate the multicultural internet environment with ease, actively using modern technology that have already become a part of their daily lives. The goal of this study is to investigate the setting of an online multicultural environment from the perspective of Slovak university students, as well as to identify and analyze current problems that university students can see in online discussions about other cultures. A structured interview was used as the primary research approach. The results provide Slovak students perspective on the six most common topics that resonate in connection with different cultures on the current Internet: (1) concerns about ones own safety due to differences of others; (2) misinformation on the Internet regarding the difference of others; (3) cognitive prejudice; (4) religious prejudices; (5) exaggeration; and (6) influencing audience emotions. This paper holds the view that modern young people should develop not only the ability to navigate in virtual reality, but also make daily personal efforts to overcome personal barriers and develop intercultural media literacy, which the authors define as the ability to acquire, in addition to digital competencies, intercultural understanding skills and apply these skills in practice in the process of communication in the Internet environment.

The role of factors of individual differences in user activity in the Russian social network VKontakte is analyzed. At the moment, in Russian psychology, there are several directions for the study of user activity in social networks. However, none of them has considered user sex and age differences. There are also limitations due to the predominance of subjective indicators in assessing user activity. The aim of this work is to study sex and age differences through the analysis of objective data on the profiles of social network users. The paper also provides an overview of modern Russian studies on sex and age differences in user activity. Using a comparative analysis of groups and analysis of the structure of relationships between indicators of user activity, the 9699 profiles of users of the social network VKontakte at the ages from 18 to 55 were examined. As a result, multiple individual differences were found in relation to the sex and age of the users. Additionally, the structure of user activity was obtained, consisting of two components: Self-presentation and Utilitarianism. These components characterize the personal orientation in the use of the social network. Sex and age play a significant role as factors of individual differences. The most important thing has turned out to be that men are more focused on expanding the circle of acquaintances, which is an attribute of status. Women, on the contrary, are generally characterized by greater activity in the social network, a greater desire to present themselves and a greater focus on other people. Young people - aged 18-25 years - are less active users, they often use the social network as a source of video content. Users belonging to the older age groups differ slightly from one another.

We have witnessed the growth and resilience of the Haitian people since 2010 and the devastating earthquake, in over fourteen humanitarian missions. In addition, MeaningfulWorld’s global presence, which aims to raise consciousness and nurture resilience and sustainability among local and global communities in Haiti, has highlighted perspectives from vulnerable and marginalized groups including children, women, and traumatized refugees. The results of this work has addressed the ultimate question in resolving emotional and psychological scars and promoting meaning, healing, hope, reconciliation, and trust: what lessons have we learned from our traumatic past? For MeaningfulWorld ambassadors, the only healthy and permanent means of resolution for past traumas is through integration of emotional intelligence (EQ), spiritual connections, love, meaning-making, forgiveness, and empathy, and nurturing gratitude as a basic foundation. This paper will describe the value of cultivating gratitude as a foundation and utilizing forgiveness and meaning-making through post trauma growth, building resilience, and emotional intelligence. Although historically Haiti has shown resilience, while the lessons learned are not only unclear, it is fragmented, misguided, and focused on fear derived from mass spread of horizontal violence, where the majority of the Haitian population pull one another down, and call it the ‘Haitian disease.’

Terrorism is an extremely serious problem of our time: it is a real threat to society and to the existence of humanity as a whole. The purpose of the proposed theoretical and analytical study of the problem of terrorism is to consider the psychological and social psychological factors of involvement in terrorist activities. To achieve the set goal, the authors analyse a number of foreign works and suggest a research line of this problem in order to be able to form a system for monitoring the youth environment. This determines the novelty and significance of this work. The relevance of addressing this complex interdisciplinary problem is explained by the fact that measures to counter terrorism are necessarily based on knowledge of the psychological factors that lead to radicalisation; equally, the development of preventive measures aimed at various groups of the population as well as the creation of programmes for deradicalisation are based on an understanding of the mechanisms of social behaviour. The starting point in the work is the concept of modern terrorism proposed by J. Baudrillard, because this author gives a quite accurate description of the specifics of modern (global) terrorism, which is in harmony with the results of psychological research and concepts that explain why a person takes the path of committing acts of extreme violence. The paper discusses the existence of a terrorist profile and examines the specifics of terrorist motivation. Special attention is paid to the ideas of M. Hogg, in the framework of the uncertainty - identity theory, which outlines the prospects for further development of the problem of terrorism and radicalisation.

The authors of the article analyse approaches to treatment for tuberculosis (TB), which have become widespread throughout the world. Scientists from different countries have made attempts to study the influence of psychological, social, cultural, ethnic, and geographical factors on the spread of tuberculosis and the effectiveness of its treatment. But so far little is known about personal or sociocultural factors that lead to a violation of treatment compliance, which significantly actualises the problems stated in this article. The relevance of the study is also determined by the fact that all measures currently used for treating tuberculosis do not lead to its complete eradication and elimination of the epidemic in the world as well as in the Russian Federation. The purpose of this work was to study the psychosocial characteristics of TB patients in Russia and their interrelationships, which will provide an opportunity to predict the patients’ behaviour in a disease situation and their treatment compliance. The study involved 1600 respondents aged 19-60 years: 800 women and 800 men, residents of Samara (Russia), of which 800 persons were TB patients and the other 800 were conditionally healthy. The following psychodiagnostic techniques were used: The World Health Organisation Quality of Life (WHOQOL) Questionnaire (core module), The Level of Social Frustratedness Questionnaire, The Neurotic Disorders Questionnaire (Russian modification of H.D. Hansgen’s BVNK-300), M. Bond’s Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) in Russian adaptation by E. Tunik, The Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WSQ) by S. Folkman and R. Lazarus in a modified and adapted Russian version, The Type of Attitude Towards the Disease (TATD) Questionnaire, and The Level of Compliance Questionnaire. It was found that the TB patients had a significantly decreased quality of life, especially in the spheres of social relations, psychological state and spirituality. Characteristic features of the TB patients in Russia were disorders of the digestive and cardiovascular systems, sleep and motor disorders, affective instability, mental exhaustion, excitability, impaired working ability, fears, and social-psychological maladaptation. The respondents tended to use more maladaptive psychological defence mechanisms. As the leading coping ways for the TB patients, search for social support and acceptance of responsibility were identified. The prevailing types of attitudes toward the disease were characterised by an intrapsychic orientation, causing impaired social adaptation of these patients. The authors constructed regression models of compliance to determine strategies for TB patients psychological support. The results of the study as well as the constructed models can be used for training professional personnel in the field of medicine, clinical psychology, social work and social pedagogy in order to optimise the provision of medical, social, psychological and pedagogical assistance to TB patients in Russia and in other countries of the world: studies show that the factors identified and analysed in this paper are similar in TB patients in different countries, regardless of their geographic location or the level of economic development and cultural features.

Modern information technology space provides people with new opportunities for learning about the world, acquiring additional knowledge and satisfying cognitive needs. The paper analyzes the requests and characteristic features of the needs for knowledge on psychology of the Internet users in the Russian Federation. The study was conducted on the basis of the search queries in Yandex. The specific user requests demonstrate a heterogeneous level of interest in various branches of psychology, which allows highlighting the structural and substantial features of the respondents’ needs in psychology knowledge and the forms of obtaining the kind of knowledge they prefer. In general, the research results showed a high level of interest of the Internet users in knowledge on psychology, demonstrated their high orientation towards the search for useful information on personal development, professional activities and the development of favorable relationships with others. The data obtained indicate the most important areas of knowledge on psychology for a modern person and will be useful in the framework of psychological and educational theory and practice. The article points out that the study of the needs of the population in knowledge on psychology should be an integral part of the psychological community, which is responsible for the psychological well-being of people and the development of the psychological culture of society as a whole.

The article looks into the English language needs of engineering students and young graduates at one of the leading technological universities in Russia - NUST MISiS. The authors used a mixed methodology approach to explore how often and in what real-life situations current and former students use the English language. 107 paper questionnaires were completed by master’s degree students in class and the answers were counted; 123 responses were received online from 2015 and 2016 graduates and processed statistically; 17 structured interviews with college administrators and subject professors were recorded and then coded for the main categories. The results demonstrate that despite dramatic changes at NUST MISiS under The Competitiveness Enhancement Program 5-100, good English competence is not a priority, with the majority of young graduates being ‘unsure’ about its benefits for their career and some administrators calling it ‘the least required competence’. However, the English language needs vary across subject departments. Thus, students majoring in new materials and programming use English on a regular basis, while economists and metallurgists might not really need it in both studies and future job. Overall, the most required skill is reading, and the least used ones are oral communication and academic writing in English. The authors discuss how orientation on potential rather than actual needs can affect the ESP/EAP course design in the context of engineering education in Russia.

The paper represents the results of exploring the effects of values on the specifics of parentchild interaction in Finno-Ugric families (Udmurts, Komi-Permyaks) in comparison to the Russian ones. 280 respondents, including 140 mothers and 140 children (56 % are females) have participated in the research: 1) representatives of the Finno-Ugric (Ural) peoples: Udmurts (94 individuals) from villages of Mozhginsky district of the Udmurt Republic and Komi-Permyaks (86 individuals) from the villages of Komi-Permyak Okrug of Perm Krai; 2) representatives of the Russian ethnocultural group (100 individuals) from the village Ust-Kachka of Perm Krai. The standardized techniques have been implemented: the technique by S. Schwartz adapted by N.M. Lebedeva for measuring values at the individual level and the questionnaire by I.M. Markovskaya for exploring parent-child interactions. The methodology and procedures of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) have been used as the main statistical method. It is revealed that parent-child interaction in Finno-Ugric families living in rural settlements with the autochthonic population is based on collectivistic values of self-preservation and survival, harmonious interaction with others. At the same time, the effect of a distinct individualistic value of independence on the indicators of the cohesion of parent-child interaction positions is found in Russian families. The results obtained during the research can be implemented while developing pedagogic techniques including the algorithms of inculturation of children in social institutions.

The article presents the results of a theoretical analysis of the contemporary foreign and domestic literature on the concept of the cognitive reserve, which is currently extremely urgent. The problems and the specificity of the cognitive impairments in patients with cardiovascular pathology, in particular, with coronary heart disease, as well as the main concepts and methodological problems of the concept of cognitive reserve are discussed in detail. The problem of the operationalization of this concept and the difficulties associated with it in determining the potential mechanisms of the cognitive reserve implementation are considered. The reciprocal influence of cognitive impairments on the course and prognosis of the coronary heart disease, in particular, on the level of compliance of the cardiac patients and subsequent psychological rehabilitation has been considered. In this regard, the paper discusses the potential directions for further research on the concept of cognitive reserve in relation to coronary heart disease, namely, the prospects of the study of the relationship between cognitive impairment and affective pathology and, in particular, alexithymia, which can significantly optimize the existing rehabilitation schemes for patients with ischemic heart disease.

The article presents the results obtained through the study of the multimodal segment within the Moodle-based training course in terms of its specific features and affordances for creating an innovative system of vocationally oriented foreign language teaching in nonlinguistic Master’s degree programmes. There is a need to research the functionality of the e-course semiotically different constituents when they co-occur and specify their contribution to the efficient presentation and perception of the learning content in digitally supported language classroom, which makes the research relevant. It envisaged identifying a set of multimodal resources and elements within the e-course, examining the image - text relations in terms of logico-semantics, specifying the teaching properties and affordances of such multicode combinations and assessing their learning effect through the students’ grade report as well as their feedback on the satisfaction with the multimedia learning content. The obtained results confirm that the e-course multimodal resources and elements derive their synergistic effect in terms of meaning and function from the complex interaction of the different modes constituting them. The digital nature of the multimodal learning content provides it with a set of specific properties such as multimedia, interactivity, nonlinear information flow, informativeness and gamification that when apply in teaching may contribute to creating effective online vocationally oriented foreign language learning environments. The specification of text - image combination patterns in formal and semantic terms and teaching affordances of their non-verbal constituents in online language classroom adds novelty to this paper.

This paper presents the results of studying the psychological aspects of attitudes to personal security of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and heart defects. The research involved 40 patients aged 45 to 81 years (47.5 % male, 52.5 % female): 20 patients with ischemic heart disease with stable angina and 20 patients with acquired heart defects. In the course of the research conducted with the help of the techniques based on subjective scaling, the attitudes to personal security, including the sources of threats, the consequences of the realization of threats and the assessment of efforts on the counteraction to these threats, posing in the author’s theoretical model as the components of the system of the attitudes to personal security, have been studied. The results show that in the patients with heart diseases, the assessments for a variety of threats, the consequences of their realization and the efforts on the counteraction to them are significantly higher, than in the patients with CAD. In general, the estimates for all the parameters in the group of the patients with CAD were closer to the estimates of healthy people, obtained in the previous studies. In the patients with heart defects, characterized by a greater duration and disease severity, the results of the indicators of the attitudes to personal security, in general, are higher and less differentiated. The conclusion is made that the attitudes to personal security as a part of the system of the psychological attitudes in general, can act as a diagnostic criterion and the indicator of the efficiency of the adaptation in cardiovascular diseases and also can be an independent target of the correctional work in a psychological consultation and psychotherapy of the patients with cardiovascular diseases. In the conclusion the recommendations for the experts who are engaged in the psychological help to the patients with cardiovascular diseases in diagnostic and correctional work with the attitudes to personal security are formulated.

Numerous studies have examined on a micro and macro level factors that influence innovation at the individual, agency, or business level. Yet there is little research on cross-national variables associated with innovation at the nation-state scale. Drawing upon existing databases, this paper examines the factors associated with some countries being labeled as more or less innovative, suggesting policies that might be enacted to promote social innovation and management. It finds that national innovation rankings are modestly correlated with democratic freedoms, control of corruption, regulatory quality, and percentage of the population with tertiary education. However when a multifactor test is performed, these factors provide significant evidence of cross-national and aggregate determinants associated with innovation.

The aim of the research presented in the paper is to conduct the comparative study of the value and meaning characteristics of the different types of social activity in the groups of young people that differ in age. The system-diachronic approach developed by R.M. Shamionov is the methodological base of the research. The research was carried out on a sample of young people divided into two groups depending on the stage of age development: young students aged 18-21 (youth, n = 40) and young people aged 22-25 (early adulthood, n = 40). The study of the forms of the manifestation and characteristics of the social activity of the young people was performed with the help of a specially developed questionnaire; its life-purpose characteristics were studied with the help of the Life-Purpose Orientations Test by D.A. Leontiev, The Existence Scale by A. Längle and C. Orgler, the methodology “Life purpose” by O.I. Motkov. Value orientations were studied using the methods “Diagnostics of the real structure of value orientations of the personality” by S.S. Bubnova and “Personality Profile” by Sh. Schwartz. It was revealed that leisure, network and educational spheres dominate in the structure of young people’s social activity, and and in the case of students it is also the spiritual sphere. It was found out that life-purpose and existential orientations define the leisure, civic, socio-economic and educational activity at the age of 18-21; the system of values and life orientations aimed at supporting other people determine the altruistic and religious types of activity. At the age of 22-25, the focus on personal attitude toward one’s own life, finding the meaning in life, the orientation towards social relations and traditions defines the manifestation of altruistic, leisure, social, political, network, civic, educational, spiritual and religious types of activity. The socio-economic activity is determined by the focus on the implementation of life purposes and the orientation towards hedonism; the same focus reduces the degree of the manifestation of protest activity. In the dynamics of the young people’s age development, the tendency of decreasing the importance of life-purpose characteristics of social activity and increasing the significance of the value orientations and the person’s orientation toward the implementation of life purposes is revealed.

Various branches of science that study homo loquens, а talking man, have made an important contribution to the development of the term ‘discourse’. It is obvious that most definitions have much in common. Firstly, discourse is realized in speech; secondly, it is formed in a wide communicative context as a result of interpersonal communication and interactions between people and society; and finally, discourse has significant impact on social and personal representations and can establish group norms. The paper discusses different approaches to discourse studies, including speech act theory, conversational analysis, discourse analysis, social and cognitive psychology. Special attention is paid to Intent-analysis which considers the basis of discourse as a hierarchy of its speech intentions and their different psychological determinants. These include interpersonal relationships, personality traits, social statuses, roles and the problems speakers solve in the communication process. Several terms related to discourse are given: discoursive practice, discoursive thinking, discoursive abilities etc. The urgent issues of discourse research such as the typology of discourses, the psychological impact and interpersonal interaction mechanisms connected to the various fields of the current reality are presented.

The multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary principle has been applied to understand and interpret the perception and adaptability of the high Andes population to the climatic variability. The study is centered on several communities of the three ethno-cultural groups in Ecuador: Puruhas, Kayambis and Otavalos, linked to the two geographic sceneries, from 2600m a.s.l. up to the summit of volcanoes. The information has been collected and the climatic variability along the last 30 years is analyzed, the dynamics of land use and natural vegetal covering of the two last decades have been interpreted (verified data and information), and data from real environment have been compared with the information obtained from the conversations, conducting surveys (perceived environment and people’s answers) and psychological tests (behavior and analysis of adaptability). The study takes the perspective that adaptability is linked with the emotional and personal characteristics of the resilience of one person or one group. The capacity to get related with the environment, to take the greatest advantage from what is necessary in order to satisfy their needs, is a process through which the communities assimilate new ways of survival and, consequently, they adapt themselves to new situations. Studying these characteristics in a certain ethno-cultural group was the object of this study, and, in this paper we will show some of the characteristics as an attempt to make a possible model of the adaptational potential of the inhabitants of these groups in condition of hazard, and their possible vulnerability.

The paper presents the study of the relationship between the attitude to the disease, coping behavior of patients with coronary heart disease prior to coronary bypass grafting (CABG), and indicators of cognitive status. Bekhterev Institute Personality Questionnaire, Ways of Coping Behavior test by R. Lazarus, Mini-Mental State Examination scale, Frontal Dysfunction Battery test, and Clock- Drawing test were used in the study. The sample included 132 patients. The results of study show that in patients with coronary artery disease prior to CABG the most frequently observed type of attitude to the disease is either the harmonious type or a combination of harmonious and ergopathic types. Confrontation, Distancing, and Problem Solution Planning were identified as the preferred coping strategies. Correlation analysis revealed positive associations between cognitive status and harmonious, ergopathic, and hypochondriac types of attitude to the disease, and negative associations between cognitive status and anosognostic and sensitive types of attitude to the disease. Furthermore, positive correlations between cognitive status and Confrontation, Self-control, Responsibility taking, Problem Solution Planning, Positive revaluation coping strategies and negative correlations between cognitive status and Distancing and Escape-avoidance coping strategies were found. The results of this study will help to improve the level of diagnostic and rehabilitation psychological care of patients with coronary artery disease in preparation for CABG.

The paper presents the findings of an empirical study of moral self-identification conducted on a sample of senior high school students from Saratov (N = 142). The study demonstrates that high school students are not indifferent to other people’s moral evaluation of their actions. High school students’ perceptions of the importance of morality and ethics are associated with compulsory and mutual observance of moral standards and with their /manifested differentiation in the relation to «In- group» - “Others”, which confirms the dominance of their group-centric orientation. It was found that ethical behavior by implementing ethical standards in behavior, high school students have a sense of emotional satisfaction, adhering to the strategy of reciprocity. The study revealed a low severity of cognitive and conative components, which explains the weak differentiation of moral norms, the consequence of which is the difficulty in resolving moral problems. These findings can be applied in the development of the training programs aimed at developing an individual’s moral sphere, as well as preventive programs aimed at reducing the risk of destructive behavior in young people.

The paper presents the results of the empirical study, which has been conducted with the aim to analyze the differences in life and family values and their interactions between the spouses from cross-cultural and monocultural couples. The sample of the study consists of 330 persons, including 85 cross-cultural Arab - Russian couples (170 persons), living in Russia, and 80 monocultural couples (160 persons).The main methods were S. Schwartz’ “Value Survey”, “Test of Attitudes to Family Life” by Yu. Alyoshina, L. Gozman, & E. Dubovskaya, «Marital Role Expectations and Aspirations” by A.N. Volkova, “Marital Satisfaction Test” by V. Stolin, T. Romanova, & G. Butenko.It was revealed that the persons from cross-cultural and monocultural marriages have different life and family values hierarchies, besides, they realize their life values in family life differently. In cross-cultural marriages the spouses see the opportunities for their normative life goals realizing in the family, especially in its psychotherapeutic and parental spheres, as well as in social activity outside the family. But in their real day-to-day activities, they do not always manage to realize their life goals in the family sphere, probably because of the difficulties in interacting with their social environment, which can come from the fact that their families are more enclosed, which in turn leads to a decrease of marital satisfaction. In the cross-cultural spouses’ representations, the collectivist values are more related to family functioning, but individualistic values such as hedonism and power are perceived as incompatible with the successful functioning of the family.

The author of the paper considers the unity of education as a specific way of existence, blurring the distinction between ontological and anthropological interpretations of education. This approach is supposed to adequately identify the philosophic sense of the category of education without linking it exclusively to the philosophic consideration of educational practice. The author also points out the connection between the ideas of the world unity and of a human being’s education as a process of gradual approaching one’s true and complete image in the history of European philosophy. Even though the contemporary notion of education is most elaborately presented by classical German philosophers, the author aims to show the prospects of addressing the antique philosophic tradition proposing the first conceptualization of education connected with a special ontological position. The author calls attention to the gradual development of views on the systemic nature of being, linking it to the initial didactic guideline of Greek philosophers. The example of Aristotle’s ethics proves the integrity of externally separate ways of making up of a person. The author comes to a conclusion about the necessity of taking the connection of educational concepts and a characteristic tendency to create the philosophic theory of the world, the elements of which are united in an integrated system, into account. In the author’s opinion, it will allow to define the real philosophic and pedagogical sense of the revision of the classical philosophic tradition, undertaken by the contemporary philosophy.

The article discusses the results of empirical study of the association between variables of persistence and academic achievement in foreign languages. The sample includes students of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Natural Science at the RUDN University ( n = 115), divided into 5 subsamples, two of which are featured in the present study (the most and the least successful students subsamples). Persistence as a personality trait is studied within A.I. Krupnov’s system-functional approach. A.I. Krupnov’s paper-and-pencil test was used to measure persistence variables. Academic achievement was measured according to the four parameters: Phonetics, Grammar, Speaking and Political vocabulary based on the grades students received during the academic year. The analysis revealed that persistence displays different associations with academic achievement variables in more and less successful students subsamples, the general prominence of this trait is more important for unsuccessful students. Phonetics is the academic achievement variable most associated with persistence due to its nature, a skill one can acquire through hard work and practice which is the definition of persistence. Grammar as an academic achievement variable is not associated with persistence and probably relates to other factors. Unsuccessful students may have difficulties in separating various aspects of language acquisition from each other which should be taken into consideration by the teachers.

Creativity is conceived as the ability to generate new, original ideas that are meaningful and valuable in their context. Models have often debated the role of divergent and convergent thinking within creativity. This paper focuses on convergent thinking and examines ways that it has been conceptualized and operationalized. It is noted that some of these conceptualizations fit more than others with creative thinking. Finally, examples of new ways to measure convergent thinking for creativity are presented and explained. The Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EpoC) battery is described as a relevant new tool to assess convergent thinking, with a focus on the integrative, original synthesis, which is ultilmately essential to the creative process, and the potential for resulting creative productions. Implications for measuring creativity and education are discussed.

The paper presents the theoretical and empirical study of the relationship of personality characteristics of level of competitiveness and subjective well-being. The study was performed on a sample of high school students ( N = 70, female and male; 16-17 years old), differing in the level of personal competitiveness, with psycho-diagnostic tools, “Express-diagnostics of personal competitiveness”(G.M. Manuilov), “Express-diagnostics of the level of social frustration (L. Wasserman)”, “The scale of subjective well-being” (M.V. Sokolova), “My self-regulation of behavior and activity” (V.I. Morosanova). It is shown that the ability for self-education, self-improvement, self-planning and modeling their prospects, achieving the goal on the background of their satisfaction with relations with the immediate environment acts as a basic capacity for personality competition in adolescents. The applied aspect of the research problem can be implemented in the development of programs of psycho- pedagogical support of the formation and development of personal competitiveness of students.

The paper discusses the problem of gender-sensitive correlation between the communicative and organizational skills and the professional performance of managers in commercial organization. The topicality of research is preconditioned by the fact that today an increasing number of women get the senior positions in business in Russia. The article submits and analyses the results of the empirical research that took place in a commercial organization (managers of clothes and accessories retail shops). Store managers of this organization took part in the research, including 82 male and 231 female. The age of the respondents ranged from 21 to 42 years old. The work experience of the managers was no less than one year. The communicative and organizational skills were measured with the help of the test-questionnaire “Communication and organizational skills” (COS) worked out by V.V. Sinyavsky and B.A. Fedorishin. The professional effectiveness was determined by two indicators: 1) the implementation of shop sales plan in 2014 and in 2015, 2) the results of expert estimates obtained using the feedback from “360 Degrees”. The results of correlation analysis demonstrated the strong relations between the manifestation of communicative and organizational skills and the indicators of professional effectiveness, received by using the feedback from “360 Degrees” in both male and female groups of respondents. At the same time, the implementation of shop sales plan in 2014 also showed a strong positive relationship with organizational and communicative skills especially in female group. By the end of 2015, after the financial crisis, these relations were although preserved, but getting weaker.

This paper aims to provide analysis of the polylogue space of a traumatic stress injured person with various Others. Communication with them is introduced through personal representations of “I - Other” interaction such as inner monologues with themselves (“I - I as the Other”), communication with the immediate (reference) environment (“I - significant Others”), intercourse with people having identical experience (“I - Other as Me”), autocommunication with real or imaginary Other as a source and a cause of the befallen traumatic event (I - Other as the enemy). It is stated that communicative practices of a traumatized personality are characterized by temporary asynchrony and asymmetry, unbalance of temporal modes, breaks, transformation of life perspective. It is acknowledged that interactions with various Others may conduce overcoming the consequences of traumatic stress and assimilation of traumatic experience as well as facilitation of the consequences and intensification (extension) of traumatism and destructiveness of the experience.The application-oriented aspect of the problem under study can be implemented by applied psychologists while working with a traumatic stress injured person, while developing personal and group psychotherapeutic programs aimed at the harmonization of intrapsychic space of traumatized person and restoring of the individual temporary context, within which a personality can define a rational intentionality of its own being and determine the meaning of traumatic experience.

The paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of how tolerance towards uncertainty correlates with the individual’s adaptive readiness. Adaptive readiness is defined as an integral concept that includes not only the person’s notions about his/her own ability to adapt (in general or to a particular (specific) situation), but also the affirmations about his/her ability to cope with difficulties arising in the process of the interaction with other people; changes in the economic, environmental, political, and other spheres of life; his/her health or his/her socio-psychological or other status, etc.. Studies prove that adaptive readiness (affirmation), adaptiveness (personality property), and readiness for change (attitude) are predictors of tolerance towards uncertainty. It is shown that, when a variable is singularly and conjointly introduced into the regression equation, adaptive readiness influences the parameters of tolerance in the most profound way relative to both socio-psychological adaptiveness and the parameters of readiness for change.

The problem of the information security of children is discussed in the presented paper. A special attention is paid to the Internet as a risk source. The article gives evidence to the importance of the analysis of the so called lay thinking about the information security of children. The presented study is based on the social representations theory proposed by S.Moscovici. The total of the study is 136 people (parents and teachers), aged from 21 to 62 years old. We supposed that the lay thinking about the information security in groups of parents and teachers was formed on two main themes - about the threats and about the ways to manage these threats. Also we supposed that parents and teachers had similar thinking about the threats but differed in their thinking about the way to manage the threat. The suppositions got partial empirical support.