RUDN Journal of Psychology and Pedagogics

The problem of social activity of young people is in the field of research attention of psychology, sociology, law, pedagogy and other sciences. The social activity of young people is an important basis for the dynamic and innovative development of society. Studying the factor structure and the role of socio-psychological characteristics in integral (combined) forms of social activity is an important task of modern social psychology. The aim of the study is to investigate the structure of social activity of young people and, based on a path analysis, to determine the role of civic identity, religiosity, sex, and education in commitment to various (combined) forms of social activity. The study involved 305 people aged M = 21.2; SD = 2.95 (men - 35.4%), 17.4% of the participants were married. A questionnaire aimed at fixing socio-demographic characteristics, civic identity, religiosity, attitudes of social activity, and developed scales aimed at measuring commitment to various types of social activity were used. To assess this commitment, previously developed scales were used. Civil identity was determined using A.N. Tatarko’s scale. Descriptive statistics methods, factorial, correlation, regression and path analyses were also applied. It has been shown that the four-component (civil-political, protest-subcultural, spiritual-educational, leisure) factor model of forms of social activity is acceptable for all the analyzed dimensions. As a result of modeling, a direct relationship between gender and education is established with the manifestations of educational-developing, civil-political and leisure, educational-developing activity respectively. Civil identity is a positive factor in civil-political activity and a negative factor in protest-subcultural activity. At the center of the model is the commitment to spiritual and educational activity, which contributes to the prediction of all the other forms of activity, i.e., civil-political and leisure (directly), and protest-subcultural (indirectly). The facilitating or hindering and mediating role of civic identity, religiosity, gender, and education in commitment to various forms of social activity can be used in organizing social activity of young people as well as in developing “guided” socialization programs.

The authors use the Stereotype Content Model to consider the relationship between positive and negative intergroup contact and personal and cultural ethnic stereotypes. The introduction poses the theoretical foundations through defining acculturation and adaptation, and also outlining their relationship with stereotypes and intergroup contact in the context of intercultural relations. The empirical part examines intergroup contact and ethnic stereotypes in Moscow about Belarusians, Chinese, Uzbeks, and Chechens with a gender-balanced sample consisted of 316 ethnic Russians aged 16 to 68 (34 years on average). Three competing hypotheses about the correspondence of valence of intergroup contact and stereotypes were considered: (1) constant valence asymmetry; (2) usefulness of stereotype-inconsistent information; (3) epistemic defense. As a result in linear mixed models that (1) personal stereotypes were more positive than cultural ones; (2) however, they were located relative to each other in accordance with the quadrants of cultural stereotypes; (3) intergroup contact was associated with personal stereotypes in the direction according to the valence of the contact; (4) no evidence for interaction between negative contact and cultural stereotypes, whereas the beneficial effect of positive contact was stronger for those ethnic groups with more negative cultural stereotypes. It was concluded that personal experience has only limited scope for improving an already positive attitude, or worsening a negative one. Therefore, only a social policy aimed at changing cultural stereotypes might be efficient.

To achieve high results in sports, both motor and cognitive skills are important. However, the formation of cognitive components of sports activity can be influenced by personality traits, for example, such a multidimensional trait as perfectionism. The aim of the research was to determine the relationship between various parameters of perfectionism and the cognitive component of skill in sports. The study involved 311 athletes aged 14 to 32 years (M = 19.5; SD = 2.03). The following instruments were used in the study: The Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale 2 and The Three-Factor Questionnaire of Perfectionism (for diagnosing perfectionism); Questionnaire of Metacognitive Involvement in Activities (for diagnosing metacognitive involvement); and The Mental Image Inventory in Sports (to determine the frequency of using mental images). It has been shown that the athletes with more pronounced perfectionism are able to better understand and evaluate their performance; they can more accurately notice mistakes and more often use mental images in the training process. Also, as a result of a series of regression analyzes, it has been found that such parameters of perfectionism as “high personal standards” and “regime organization” affect the frequency of using cognitive and motivational images, as well as metacognitive involvement in the activities of the athletes who took part in the study. Thus, perfectionism has a significant impact on various parameters of the cognitive component of skill development, which in turn can affect the performance of an athlete in training and competition.

Cognitive flexibility is considered a trait of human cognition that helps people adapt to new and changing environments by activating cognitive resources; it develops mainly at preschool age, being a predictor of children's future social and academic successes, which emphasizes the importance of diagnosing its formation. The present study is intended to assess the diagnostic capabilities of the digital version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort technique by P.D. Zelazo aimed at diagnosing the cognitive flexibility of preschoolers, compared with the traditional blank version. The digital version of the technique was tested on a sample of 55 children attending two senior kindergarten groups (57.1% of boys) aged 5 to 6 years (M = 64.03, SD = 2.14). An intra-individual scheme with the division of the subjects into two groups was applied. The first group was initially tested using the blank technique, and a month later using the digital one. The second group, on the contrary, was first tested using the digital technique and, a month later, using the blank one. Thus, the transfer effect was controlled. Sufficient indicators of reliability and consistency of the results of both measurements were obtained for the blank and digital versions of technique. No statistically significant differences were found between the mean values of the same indicators measured by digital and blank techniques different methods (Student’s t -test for paired samples). The results of the study show that the digital version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort technique has high indicators of validity and reliability and can be used in diagnostic work. However, these results indicate that the digitalization of techniques cannot always be reduced to a simple translation of them into the form of a software product, and requires additional research when adapting them.

Social progress is largely determined by the degree to which digital reality is mastered by society as well as by the development and implementation of innovative technologies related to the use of artificial intelligence. Of particular relevance are issues related to the training of a new generation of specialists, who will be able not only to harmoniously fit into the current digital contexts of social life but also purposefully improve, develop and transform their professional digital tools. It is required to set and solve the tasks of developing students’ competences at a high-quality level, which implies pedagogical specification of the modern educational content. The aim of the study is to elaborate a didactic apparatus for revising the modern educational content for students majoring in the humanities and social sciences, taking into account the current contexts of professional activity in digital reality. The authors have formulated a hypothesis that, in order to prepare humanities students to solve the ever more complex tasks of professional activity and communication in digital reality, it is necessary to update the educational content on an interdisciplinary basis, bringing it into line with the digital contexts of professional activity in this field and introducing a new content outline. This can be done if the following tasks are solved: (1) to define the current areas of work of a specialist in the humanities and social sciences in digital reality and, on this basis, create a digital profile for such a specialist, i.e., an invariant set of tasks relevant in the context of digitalization as well as the corresponding competences; (2) to determine a set of disciplines that have the greatest potential for implementing the digital profile of such a specialist; (3) to substantiate the project of changes in the educational content for students majoring in the humanities and social sciences; and (4) to conduct an experimental test of the draft changes in this educational content. The nominal data comparison method, namely the McNemar test, was used. The solution of the above tasks allowed us: in theoretical terms, to lay the conceptual foundations for selecting the actual educational content for students majoring in the humanities and social sciences in digital reality and, in practical terms, to propose specific tools for updating the subject content. The obtained results confirmed the hypothesis of the study and ways to update the educational content on an interdisciplinary basis, taking into account the current contexts of the professional activity in the social and humanitarian sphere in digital reality.

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