No 2 (2016)

This article represents the first part of a two part series of articles focusing upon one core positive psychology concept - the peak experience termed flow developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - as a test case for examining some of the issues involved when positive psychology is internationalized and made indigenous. In particular, methodological, measurement, and theoretical issues regarding flow research will be discussed. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches to flow, including interviews, surveys, and the experience sampling method among others will be described. Evidence is examined from a range of existing research projects on flow from around the globe, raising questions concerning the positive psychology enterprise, including the value of psychological assessment tools and the debate over cross-cultural universals/comparisons. Rather than viewing qualitative and quantitative approaches (or anthropological and psychological perspectives) as rival factions, this project seeks to develop constructive dialogue that acknowledges both strengths and limitations of each approach to facilitate engagement with the topics of mixed methods and human strengths, subjects often neglected in cross-cultural research. The first part of the article series examines methodological implications of this positive psychology concept, and the second part of the article series focuses upon the cross-cultural implications.

The article reveals the features of interspecific interaction “Human - Pet” in aspects of psychology and behaviorism. This direction is shown to be promising in the theoretical and applied aspects. This is significant for the study of individual social activity and human life, as well as social groups. The article identifies the promising areas of the research of such interaction: in the development of family and child-parent relations; in the asocial individual development under the influence of various factors (social and personal); in various directions of media development (social advertising on television and in print), in fiction and film; in socially-significant communicating in social networks (communication through video sharing, etc.). It is shown that this perspective is important for research in education and upbringing. We have come to the conclusion that the problems are of social significance because the direct and/or indirect human contact with natural objects contributes to the development of different spheres of his/her personality (cognitive, communicative, aesthetic, ethical, emotional, volitional).

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.

This article is devoted to the problem of the value orientations of modern young people, who begin their independent life in the current conditions of the difficult changes in the political, social and economic life of the countries. Greece and Russia are two of the countries, which are in crisis due to the globalisation processes. The article gives the details of the results of the empirical study of the value orientations in Greek and Russian students and presents their comparative analysis. It identifies the similarity of the value orientations in Greek and Russian students, which appears in the fact that the value of health (it seems quite difficult to achieve) and the value of self-development and self-improvement (an easily achievable value) are important to the students of both groups; and the values of creativity and financially-secure life (the value, which is difficult to achieve) have little significance. The significant differences between the groups lie in the fact, that the Russian group is dominated by the people with the focus on business, the value of interesting work is important to them, they are more focused on business activity, as well as on love, and the interpersonal relations are less significant for them. The Greek students are often focused on themselves, on their families; freedom in actions, confidence and friendship are more important to them. The peculiarities of the value orientations of the Russian students are internally more conflicting: first of all, we are talking of an important value of love and its dissatisfaction, the important value of an interesting job and the idea that it is difficult to achieve these values. The internal conflict of the Greek students often concerns the importance and the low availability of the value of freedom. The study shows that the peculiarities of the value orientations of Russian students reflect the socio-economic changes in the society, while the values of Greek students remain more traditional for their culture and the way of life.

The article discusses the ratio of stress tolerance to the level of personal anxiety. It provides a definition of the term “stress tolerance”, analyzes the concept of the “disquietude” and the “anxiety”: how different authors define these phenomena, what is different and what is in common. The concepts of “personal anxiety” and “situational anxiety” are given consideration. The views of foreign and domestic authors on anxiety as a factor that contributes to stress, as well as its components are discussed. An overview of the methods of measuring stress and anxiety is provided: a stress questionnaire of S.V. Subbotin, anxiety scale of Spielberger - Hanin. The results of domestic and foreign research on the identification of correlations between the variables of stress tolerance and anxiety are analyzed. We also consider the results of our own research, conducted on a sample of 149 men and 142 women in 2015-2016 years in Moscow. The results of four subgroups of the respondents are reviewed: men with high stress tolerance, men with low stress tolerance, women with high stress tolerance, and women with low stress tolerance. In each of the subgroups the variables of reactive and personal anxiety and connections between indicators of anxiety and indicators of stress tolerance are analyzed; the conclusions about the relationship of stress and anxiety in each subgroup are drawn.

The article deals with the organizational and methodical bases of multicultural self-organization of the linguistic personality of the student in terms of additional foreign language education. According to the authors’ opinion, the methodological basis is a dialogue of cultures as a philosophy of mutual understanding, mutual relations in today’s global environment. Changing the socio-cultural context of foreign language education paradigm allows you to select multicultural (teaching a foreign language on the principle of “native culture - the culture of the foreign language speaking country - the culture of the world”) and active (the development and functioning of a person in the normal course of his activities, where the starting point is the introduction of man to the world of culture and his self-development) approach as a priority. The contents of additional education is oriented towards the disclosure and a possible solution of specific problems in the educational practice, and based on the principles of humanism and diversification.The article analyzes the individual programs of additional education and professional training in the field of foreign languages, developed by universities in recent decades. The authors present the experience of the scientific and methodological development and implementation at the department of foreign languages and teaching methods of Bunin Yelets State University of the additional foreign language education system that provides the multicultural self-organization of the student’s linguistic personality. The description of the program of professional retraining “The multicultural self-organization expert in the field of business, management and tourism (English)”, designed for the students of non-language training areas, is presented, too. The positive dynamics of mastering foreign languages, the development of global attitude of the linguistic personality to the culture and his/her cultural self-determination is shown, too.