Vol 18, No 3 (2021)

The study of intercultural interaction has recently become one of the topical problems of social psychology. Considered often in the context of developing intercultural competence, they nevertheless ignore the mechanisms that underlie the causes of effective or ineffective communication. The mechanism by which intercultural competence contributes to intercultural efficiency is described in an integrative model of intercultural interaction, which unites a group of theories of communicativistic and socio-psychological approaches. This model substantiates the contribution of uncertainty and anxiety to the effectiveness of intercultural communication, which has been widely studied in quantitative studies. The aim of the study is to test the idea of the role of the situation of uncertainty and anxiety in the situation of intercultural interaction using qualitative analysis. The research was carried out based on a theoretical socio-psychological model of intercultural interaction. Using the in-depth interview method and subsequent phenomenological data analysis, a dense description of effective and ineffective intercultural communication was obtained from the point of view of each of the four aspects of the model: anxiety, uncertainty, social identity and intergroup anxiety. As a result of the analysis, data were obtained that reveal the content of some of the blocks of the model (intercultural abilities, communication efficiency, management of uncertainty), as well as a new block (emotion management) was identified and the properties of connections (between anxiety management and communication efficiency, between emotion management and anxiety management) were highlighted. Since the qualitative analysis made it possible to adjust the theoretical integrative model of intercultural interaction, and also revealed additional components of the model that develop theoretical ideas about the mechanisms underlying effective and ineffective communication, the results of this study can serve as a basis for the practice of the training of specialists working in the field of international relations: teachers of multicultural education, HRs in the field of international business, specialists in intercultural consulting, etc.

Globalization, forced and voluntary migration, as well as the development of international relations result in increased cultural heterogeneity and, accordingly, increased frequency of intercultural contacts. Unfortunately, the massive clash of different cultures, ethnic groups and confessions is often accompanied by the emergence of cultural misunderstandings, prejudices and conflicts. From the point of view of scientific knowledge, intercultural conflict is a relatively new and poorly studied subject of psychology, which includes the need to create new tools for studying this kind of conflict. The article presents the results of the development and preliminary validation of The Questionnaire on Behavioral Strategies in Intercultural Conflict based on a motivational model for choosing a behavioral strategy. The development of the questionnaire took place in several stages and included a qualitative and quantitative methodology. The methodology was validated on a Russian sample (N = 256). The obtained results of approbation indicate rather high psychometric characteristics of the method as a research tool. The developed questionnaire describes behavior consistent with seven strategies: collaborating, competing, avoiding, accommodating, teaching norms, expressing negative emotions, and searching a third party. The questionnaire can be used by various specialists for the prevention and settlement of intercultural conflicts, when conducting trainings on ethnic tolerance and intercultural competence and communication, when developing recommendations for state and non-profit organizations dealing with the problems of interethnic relations, adaptation of refugees and migrants.

The article analyses 20 years of experience with multicultural education in Slovakia. The starting point is to examine the causes and reasons why multicultural education has been included in the education system. The rationale for the introduction of multicultural education is interpreted in the context of the current possibilities and needs of society, identifying mainly the problems that multicultural education solves today. The basic principles and pillars of multicultural education are introduced and at the same time their strengths and weaknesses are examined. Emphasis is placed on human dignity and social responsibility as sources on which other values of multicultural education are based. In contrast to these principles is the environment in which education takes place. The school and family environment do not offer a sufficient principled background, do not prefer and often do not respect the values of multiculturalism. The resulting conflict of principles and environment poses the biggest problem and risk in multicultural education. Specific attention is paid to the issue of education in the mother tongue, this problem in Slovakia mainly affects the Roma minority. The inability to learn in one’s mother tongue is contrary to equal opportunities as well as to the possibilities for the development of the human person in the context of his or her dignity. Finding perspectives requires a change from above, in the setting of the school environment as well as a change from below, i.e. a change in the value orientations and personal attitudes of individual teachers and changes in their preparation for the future profession.

The process of globalization and the emergence of various new media are currently increasing the importance of the study of advertising in various fields, including higher education. This is due to the fact that the ability of manufacturers to create and display advertising texts makes it possible to effectively promote ideas, goods or services around the world for commercial and non-commercial purposes. The research is devoted to a comparative analysis of the development of the advertising specialty in higher education in post-Soviet Russia (1991-2020) and in the People’s Republic of China (1949-2020). It presents the history of the formation and development of the advertising specialty in Russian and Chinese universities. The authors investigate the extent to which the development of this specialty in universities complies with the requests of government agencies and of the advertising industry in Russia and China in different periods. The goal of the study is to examine the specifics of the development processes of the advertising specialty in Russia and China and to identify their advantages and disadvantages. Addressing the topic is relevant due to the intensity of the development of advertising and to the need to search for new forms of learning for the further development of this promising specialty in higher education. The results of the analysis have helped identify similarities and differences in the development of these processes in the two countries and describe specific features of the latter with due account of social, economic and historical factors at various stages of development. The obtained data proves that, along with similarities, the development of the advertising specialty in higher education in Russia and China has certain differences, which is directly related to the ideological atmosphere, financial state, economic strategies, and higher education standards in the two countries.

The aim of the research is to develop a Russian-language version of Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) by M. Savickas and E. Porfeli and test its psychometric properties on a Russian sample of high school students from 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. The relevance of the study is determined by the modern society demand for the search, creation and development of effective tools for diagnosing meta-skills that are conducive to a person’s professional self-determination, success and well-being. The study involved 607 people (360 girls and 247 boys) aged 15 to 19. The Russian-language version is identical to international form of Career Adapt-Abilities Scale. It includes 24 items that are summarized to give a total score for diagnosing career adaptability and are equally divided into four subscales to measure adaptability resources, including: concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. The internal consistency coefficients of the scale and its subscales ranged from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ and were close to the corresponding parameters of the international version of CAAS. The study demonstrated the retest reliability of CAAS, the factor structure and correlations of the general indicator of career adaptability and its parameters with other psychological constructs associated with personality traits, regulatory mechanisms and processes of professional self-development. Thus, the adapted Russian-language form of Career Adapt-Abilities Scale is a reliable and valid tool for studying personal career adaptability and career-adaptive resources in Russian-speaking samples. Further research is related to the analysis of the age invariance of the method; it is also planned to study its invariance separately in men vs women groups. The article contains the text of the questionnaire, instructions and keys.

Against the background of social changes in the last decade, the increasing priority of the role of a child in relation to the role of an adult, modern adolescents are faced with a choice of growing-up strategies, which is accompanied by an internal conflict of this process, a contradiction between the laws of development, including social and modern cultural imperatives. This urgent problem is in the focus of the presented research. The process of modern Russian adolescents’ growing-up in the context of their professional self-determination is analyzed. Professional self-determination is considered as a factor of positive growing-up acceptance due to certain value orientations. It is assumed that the choice of a future profession made by adolescents (i.e., their professional self-determination) increases their self-assessment of adulthood, and value orientations can act as its predictors as determining the meaning of growing up for them. The study involved 302 male teenagers aged 14-17 years, including: 148 cadets of the Suvorov School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and 154 students of secondary schools. The study used the questionnaire method, modified Dembo - Rubinstein Self-Assessment Methods and Schwartz Value Survey. Statistical processing was based on a comparative ( F -tests and the Mann -Whitney U test), variance ( F ), and regression ( B ) analyses. The results of the study show that the professional self-determination of adolescents increases their self-assessment of adulthood. The professional self-determination of adolescents is associated with the factor of primary professional socialization, namely, the conditions of the educational environment in which they grow up. The value orientations of adolescents are predictors of their self-assessment of adulthood, and are mediated by group, gender, and social stereotypes in the image of an adult and the role of an adult.

Social networks are taking up more and more place in the daily life of modern people, becoming an integral part of our existence. At the same time, the role of social networks is constantly growing along with the rapid growth in the number of their active users. As online interaction for many has become more used than face-to-face communication, social networks have begun to seriously affect the way of life, communication, interests and psychology of people. The use of social networks is growing exponentially and has covered more than a third of the world’s population; therefore, researchers from different countries are actively studying social networks. Considerable empirical data has been accumulated that requires generalization and understanding, which is the purpose of this review. We found positive links between social media addiction and depression, anxiety, stress, neuroticism, emotional problems, low self-esteem, cyber-victimization, physical health problems, mental disorders, loneliness, procrastination, smartphone and internet addiction, and infidelity in relationships. Negative links were revealed between social media addiction and life satisfaction, academic performance of schoolchildren and students, labor productivity and commitment to the organization of its employees, social capital, and age. The main reason for social media addiction is the need for communication, and women are generally more active in social networks than men. This review provides only those links of social media addiction that have been established in a number of studies conducted in different countries. The presented results were obtained abroad using foreign language questionnaires that determine social media addiction. The lack of such a reliable and valid tool among Russian-speaking psychologists has become a serious factor hindering the conduct of similar domestic research. With this in view, the author developed a specially designed social media addiction questionnaire.

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