Vol 17, No 4 (2020): Contemporary Positive Psychology in Russia and in the World

The majority of psychological research has focused heavily on the negative outcomes of trauma and tends to ignore the positive outcomes of experiencing traumatic events. Posttraumatic growth (PTG) is a concept that stems from positive psychology and was originally developed by R.G. Tedeschi and L.G. Calhoun (2004). PTG is the process of growth after trauma and has been divided into five domains: greater appreciation for life, more intimate relationships, personal strength, recognition of new possibilities, and spiritual development. This mixed methods study utilizes archival data collected in 2015-2016 at the American University of Phnom Penh to examine the experience of growth after trauma that 70 Cambodian participants faced from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Quantitative analysis determined that the Adult Resilience Measure (ARM) and the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) were considered internally reliable and valid measures when used with Cambodians. It was determined that the number of traumatic events one experiences does not influence one’s ability to experience PTG or resiliency and the concepts of PTG and resiliency are correlated. The qualitative analysis utilized grounded theory to develop a theory of PTG within Cambodia. These results indicated that Cambodians experience PTG in four core categories including: personal strength, relational strength, avenues of growth and religion/spirituality. The quantitative and qualitative results illustrate that Cambodians experience PTG in a similar manner when compared to the original PTG theory. However, there are cultural nuances that must be taken into account when exploring PTG within the Cambodian population.

For contemporary societies, psychological research on moral behaviour, moral manifestations and personality traits has acquired special relevance. In addition, the recent rise of positive psychology offers an important perspective on the study of spiritual-moral qualities (virtues), demonstrating the degree to which a person’s happiness in life relates to high spiritual-moral guidelines. Various aspects of personal spirituality, morality and empathy are actively being studied by international scientists; however, in Russian psychology, studies on this topic are scarce. Utilizing a Russian sample, such a study, including the context of higher moral capacities, was conducted for the first time. The theoretical part of this article addresses the issues related to the higher moral capacities, providing definitions and indicating difference between moral capacities and moral abilities: higher moral capacities appropriately belong to the category of spiritual capacities. As part of higher moral capacities, the following components are distinguished: spiritual-moral qualities as a manifestation of a spiritual altruistic orientation and empathy as a manifestation of moral feelings associated with decentration, empathic feeling and empathic care. The relationship between these components is analysed in the empirical part of the article. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between indicators of personal spiritual-moral qualities and empathy. The data for the study were collected and processed using The Spiritual Personality Inventory by A. Husain, M. Anas (adapted by G.V. Ozhiganova) and The Interpersonal Reactivity Index by M. Davis (adapted by N.A. Budagovskaya, S.V. Dubrovskaya and T.D. Karyagina). The empirical study involved 90 high school students (girls represented 56% of the sample). The results confirmed our hypothesis: a correlation analysis revealed a relationship between indicators of personal spiritual-moral qualities and empathy in three aspects: (1) cognitive (the ‘Decentration’ scale), (2) affective (the ‘Empathic Feeling’ scale) and (3) behavioural (the ‘Empathic Care’ scale). No relationship was found with the ‘Personal Distress’ scale reflecting non-spiritual, egocentric tendencies. These findings allow us to consider spiritual-moral qualities (related to a spiritual altruistic orientation) and empathy (disclosed as ‘decentration’, ‘empathic feeling’ and ‘empathic care’) as components of higher moral capacities.

The overall aim of this article was to examine factors related to life satisfaction in old age. There are several approaches to understanding life satisfaction in psychology. Some theories that emphasize objective circumstances as most influential for life satisfaction are commonly labelled bottom-up theories, whereas theories that focus on stable individual characteristics are commonly labelled top-down theories. It is argued that certain personality traits, in particular extraversion and neuroticism, partly determine a person’s satisfaction with life. At the same time, cognitive factors related to life satisfaction are rarely the subject of empirical research. In this study, age, social status (works, does not work, in retirement), type of family (nuclear or extended), and a number of indices of cognitive functioning (cognitive flexibility, memory - short-term and long-term, creativity and thinking) were used as predictor variables of life satisfaction. Ninety-seven respondents aged 50-84 participated in the research, which finds that, along with non-cognitive factors of life satisfaction, cognitive factors play great roles as well. Based on the data obtained, an empirical model of cognitive factors of life satisfaction was constructed. This research demonstrates that all cognitive variables examined (flexibility of thinking, long-term memory, short-term memory, thinking and creativity) make positive contributions to increasing satisfaction; notably the roles of long-term memory and creativity are especially salient. This study also found satisfaction is significantly higher among working older respondents when compared with their non-working colleagues, with the oldest employees the most satisfied. Family status is a factor related to life satisfaction in old age as well, since old people who live with a spouse are more satisfied than those who live in extended families with children and grandchildren. A regression model combined variables from top-down and bottom-up theories. The model includes memory and age as personal characteristics, and family type as a circumstantial predictor for life satisfaction in old age.

The phenomenology of positive psychology is associated, first of all, with the assessment of the positive significance of mental phenomena, processes, states and properties of an individual, a qualitative analysis of which makes it possible to determine the degree of realisation of personal capabilities in various spheres of life, contributing to the maintenance and improvement of significant resources of one’s own self. In this regard, of particular interest is the development of the topic of the relationship between perfectionism and forms of social activity of an individual, since the case in hand is the role of individuals and their subjective properties as a resource of not only personal, but also social, capital. The purpose of the study presented in the article is to conduct an empirical study regarding the relationship between perfectionism and various forms of personal social activity. The study involved representatives of student youth aged between 16 and 19 years ( N = 236): high school students ( n = 118) and university students ( n = 118) in Saratov and the Saratov region (Russia). The methodological tools included: a questionnaire aimed at registering various forms of social activity and their manifestations (R.M. Shamionov, I.V. Arendachuk, E.E. Bocharova and others) and The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (P.L. Hewitt, G.L. Flett, adapted by I.I. Gracheva) to study the relationships between the manifestations of the parameters of perfectionism. The hypothesis of the study was the assumption of the presence of multidirectional relationships between the manifestations of the parameters of perfectionism and self-assessments of various forms of social activity. As a result of the study, the authors established the dominant manifestation of the internal locus of perfectionism and identified the presence of multidirectional relationships between perfectionism and forms of social activity of the students, which made it possible to clarify the specifics of its functional manifestation in the deployment (or limitation) of social activities. It was shown that when the internal locus of perfectionism was fixed, the social and economic activities of the students were deployed, while the educational, spiritual, protest and subcultural activities were limited. However, when the external locus of perfectionism was fixed, the young people initiated subcultural activities against the background of limited educational and developmental activities. In sum, findings from this research can be implemented in the practice of advisory services in educational institutions, and in the organization of socially useful activities for young people, by taking into account their perfectionist orientation.