Issue 4 2019

Entire issue in PDF format

I. Philosophy

II. Psychology

III. Sociology

IV. Events

This scientific paper deals with the topical problem of contemporary philosophy — creative consciousness as an aesthetic phenomenon. It also discusses the necessity of identifying this phenomenon in modern realities as a special form of consciousness which occupies an intermediate position between the individual and the public, in particular, aesthetic consciousness. The main idea of this article is indicated by the author as a search for opportunities to approach all the psychic that accompanies the process of creating a work of art by its creator. The author’s rhetoric about creative consciousness is built in the perspective of the generally accepted philosophical paradigm about the creative nature of consciousness as such. Reproductivity theories are shown to be important for understanding the phenomenon of consciousness. The paper aims to justify an orderly, streamlined concept of studying creative consciousness in the aesthetic field from the perspective of the phenomenological and psychological position. Philosophical views of E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, M. Merlot-Ponty, J.-P. Sartre, A. Georgi, M. Mamardashvili, P. Riker, R. May are the conceptual theoretical constructs which determine the vector of the author’s research position. Particular attention is paid to the ideas that contain practical experience of combining the phenomenological method and practical psychology. Analysis of the philosophers’ views allows the author to define the methodology for the procedure of understanding the phenomenon under study, to define the objective, main steps, content and stages of the qualitative phenomenological and psychological research on creative consciousness as an aesthetic phenomenon. The main qualities of the research position can be empathy and reflexivity. The author sees a further perspective for substantiation of the stated problems in the analysis of philosophical concepts related to the phenomenological and aesthetic field.

Basing on the theory of economist A. Prokhorov, the authors formulate empirical regularities that characterize the features of the «Russian management model»: the cluster/clan character of a typical Russian organization, poorly managed at the grass-roots level, and the cyclic pattern of the alternating «stagnant» and «mobilization» phases of development. These regularities appear to impede the increase in labor productivity at Russian enterprises. On the other hand, they allow the economy as a whole to function in a fairly effective way. The empirical material was studied by means of Dasein-analysis: specific features of Russian being and time were analyzed. The basic structures of Russian being, namely «maybe»-being and carelessness were revealed. The authors suggest that Russian being is being on the other side of the oppositions of existence and non-existence, thinking and madness, fear and fearlessness, death and immortality, traditional for the European consciousness. Russian being is ontologically ambivalent. European and Russian thinking also differ in understanding of the nature of time, expressed in the figures of a line and a circle, accordingly. For a European, the main mode of thinking is the future, which determines Europeans’ active efforts to change reality. For a Russian, the main mode of thinking is the past, «stuck» in the present and not allowing future to be realized. From the point of view of the phenomenological model, these features determine the cyclical nature of time of Russian being. The phenomenon of the «Russian miracle» corresponds to the Prokhorov’s «mobilization phase», which is an ontologically inconsistent and therefore always short-term attempt to «free up» time and go beyond the limits of everyday life by assuming responsibility for one’s own being. The authors analyze the possibilities of transforming of the traditional «Russian management model» to increase its productivity.

The challenges facing global capitalism testify to the systemic crisis of the bourgeois civilization. This determines the increased interest in Marx, whose works are causing heated debate, as it was a hundred years ago. Such interest is also explained by practical implementation of his ideas, which changed the history in the 21st century. The article Marx’s Theoretical Heritage and Modernity consists of two parts. The first part contains a brief analysis of Marx’s heritage and shows Marx’s methodology of researching society as a strong point of his teaching. However, this methodology demonstrates its heuristic possibilities only when Marx’s theory is seen not as a fixed dogma but as a creative doctrine that is supposed to evolve with the change of society. The article shows what ideas of Marx’s economic teaching are in demand today and require further development in connection with the transition of capitalism to its post-industrial stage and the formation of a monopolistic global world order. At the present time, Marx’s political economy does not cause so much controversy as philosophy, political theory and their relationship do. The article analyzes the points of view existing in scientific literature and shows the fallacy of separating Marx’s political theory from his philosophy and especially opposing the former to the latter. The article also considers the problem of authorship of political theory.

The article deals with the formation of philosophical anthropology in the framework of Soviet philosophical science in the 1950–1980s. It was during this period that a number of researchers set a task to humanize Marxism after they had received the opportunity to reconstruct Marx’s anthropology referring to primary sources. The result of these searches was the recognition of the problem of man as the central point of K. Marx’s philosophy and philosophy in general, as well as the justification of the need to develop a comprehensive philosophical discipline which was called «human science». The article reconstructs and explores the basic concepts of philosophical and anthropological thought of the 1950–1980s: the «new man» project, the problem of alienation, the relationship between the social and the biological, freedom and necessity, personality and society, the problem of the meaning and purpose of life. It is concluded that innovative philosophers («anthropologists») of that period could not completely get rid of the ideological dogmatic patterns introduced into philosophy, but they managed to analyze the phenomenon of man in his not only collective but individual being; the analysis was accompanied with conclusions about the self-worth of a person and their right to auto-determination. Later, in the mid-1980s and 1990s, after the abolition of ideological control, this set of ideas was used by Russian scientists as paradigmatic for the formation and institutionalization of philosophical anthropology as a separate philosophical discipline in a constructive dialogue with non-Marxist concepts of man.

The principle of trust, being a direct basis of productive informal relationships between people, ceases to be the independent and sufficient foundation when social relations are formalized. Under institutionalization of social processes, they are normative principles of legal regulation that become the basis for formal relationships. The phenomenon of trust is considered as the basis of direct relationships between people and as mediated by the norms of legal (or contract) relationships. In the process of reproduction of formal (mediated) relationships, there arises lack of trust between people, and the culture of trust is replaced with the culture of distrust. The indicated problem is obvious in one of the most significant spheres of human life — medicine. The article provides philosophical and anthropological interpretation of the status and role of trust in relationship between a doctor and a patient in modern medicine, defines the ontological status of trust and forms of its existence in the current sociocultural situation. The study concludes that nowadays, under the conditions of the changing ethical paradigm in medicine, there takes place transformation of the phenomenon of trust in the «doctor – patient» relationship, where irrational trust is substituted for rational. The problem of trust is actualized in a situation when a person is waiting for medical care but receives a service within the framework of the current public health institute. Irrational trust, associated with the patient’s desire for safety, should be recognized as the basis of trust in a doctor in modern medicine. To retain irrational trust under the conditions of depersonalization in medicine, it is necessary to provide philosophical comprehension of the «shift» in the bases and meanings of the «doctor – patient» relationship.

The article provides analysis of social technologies and historical reconstruction of their development; it traces the appearance of the term «technology» in the social context. When studying social technologies and their development one can trace their dependence on the social models characterizing the functioning of society, the localization of certain social practices, the political, economic and technological order, the degree of industrial development, the general culture in the society and subcultures («solidarities»). The rapid and ubiquitous development of applied technologies, in particular digital technologies, leads to significant changes in the social sphere, while digital and information technologies themselves become an active tool for research and construction of social technologies, a trigger for their development. In the course of their development, there takes place a convergence of approaches and methodologies of various areas of applied science, ranging from modern digital technologies, data analysis, machine learning, and ending with biotechnology and advanced genomic engineering research. The author deems it necessary to introduce the concept «hybrid social technologies» as a central element of contemporary social technologies and analyzes the theoretical and methodological bases for the formation of hybrid social technologies which are deduced from the principles of complexity, non-linearity, interdisciplinary and convergence. The author outlines the main growth points for hybrid social technologies and highlights the increasing complexity in the development of such technologies, as well as the complexity and importance of predicting the consequences of using those.

In recent years, negative personality traits have attracted research attention. One of the examples is Dark Triad, which is a constellation of three personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Some Dark Triad measures have been created. The article is devoted to the adaptation and validation of the Short Dark Triad (SD3) measure. We examined the structure, reliability, and validity of the items and scales in samples of 459 participants (69,5 % of them were female). Two versions of the questionnaire were offered: the full one (27 items) and the revised one (18 items). The structures of both versions correspond to the original SD3. The alpha reliabilities were 0,72 for Machiavellianism, 0,75 for narcissism, and 0,65 for psychopathy. The test-retest reliabilities were good for Machiavellianism and narcissism, and appropriate for psychopathy. To evaluate the convergent validity of SD3, it was compared with Russian adaptation of HEXACO-60. The Dark Triad traits have negative relationships with Honesty – Humility, Emotionality and Agreeableness. This study indicates that SD3 provides efficient, reliable, and valid measures of the personality traits included in the Dark Triad.

The research deals with styles of business communication, which appears to be a topical issue nowadays. Its topicality correlates with the current needs and trends in the sphere of professional activity: in personnel selection the focus is on the ability to solve specific problems, not just on the profession; orientation is not towards an individual person but towards joint activity in a unique environment; there is an emphasis on complex assessment and employment of the resources, not of separate qualities of a person, etc. The purpose of the present study is a comparative analysis of business communication styles in the samples of penal colony employees, hospital nurses and managers. The subject of research is business communication styles of persons engaged in socionomic professions. Hypotheses of the study are as follows: 1) Styles of business communication are determined by the conditions of the environment; 2) In each particular environment, there are assumed to be some style niches, within the boundaries of which a person chooses certain patterns of behavior. Research methods: expert survey, psychodiagnostics (test questionnaires «Coping behavior in stressful situations» and «Questionnaire for ways of coping» by T. Kryukova, test questionnaires 16-PF by R.B. Cattell, questionnaire «Level of subjective control»); research technique — questionnaire «Styles of business communication» by V.A. Tolochek. In this article, we consider only the results obtained with the help of the research technique. According to the results, in each of the three samples there are distinguished six styles whose features are determined by environmental conditions, which confirms the working hypotheses.

The article analyzes the issue of perfectionism and perfectionist self-presentation and its current state in psychological science. It is noted that perfectionism is manifested in many types and forms of human activity, including communicative activity. The paper discusses the results of empirical study of the relationship between perfectionist self-presentation and communicative activity. The research sample consisted of would-be designers (students) and designers. P. Hewitt’s method «The scale of perfectionist self-presentation» (SPS) (adapted by A.A. Zolotareva) and A.I. Krupnov’s «The Judgment Test» were applied in the research. Descriptive statistics, the Mann–Whitney U test, Spearman correlation coefficient were used to process the data. The statistical software package SPSS 17.0 for Windows was also used. The study has identified universal and unique interrelations of perfectionist self-presentation and communicative activity indicators in the samples of students and designers. The general mechanism for demonstrating perfection and behavioral non-manifestation of imperfection is the cognitive component of communicative activity — awareness, while behavioral non-manifestation of imperfection is associated with the productive component of communicative activity — subjectivity, i.e. orientation to your inner world and the world of the partner in communication. Unlike designers, students show emotional and regulative components of communication activity to remain unconnected with perfectionist self-presentation. The results of the study can be used in individual psychological counseling by specialists of psychological services at universities. The data obtained may be of interest to curators of student groups, teachers, and may also be in demand by specialists in the artonomic sphere (a person as an artistic image) in solving problems of optimizing interpersonal interaction.

The article studies fears and anxiety of older preschoolers depending on the age, gender and family factors (content and structural characteristics of the family). The study involved 80 mother–child dyads: 38 boys and 42 girls aged 5–6 years from Saint Petersburg. The study revealed that the total number of preschoolers’ fears corresponds to the age norm, however, high anxiety is observed. The most pronounced fears were fears of death, animals and fairy-tale characters, physical damage. In general, girls demonstrate more expressed fears. Children who have a sibling are characterized with more pronounced medical fears. Differences in anxiety by gender, age and structural characteristics of the family were not found. In the general sample, it was found that fears become less pronounced with the expansion of the sphere of parental feelings, while anxiety is more pronounced with excessive sanctions, which is natural, but less pronounced when a parental conflict is brought into the sphere of education. In the sample of boys, the total number of fears is less pronounced with indulgent overprotection; anxiety is higher when mothers take the parental role, when sanctions are excessive, or the child’s needs are ignored, and it is lower if the parental feelings are not developed. In the sample of girls, the total number of fears is greater when mothers project their own undesirable qualities on the children and less in the case of extension of the parental feelings sphere; anxiety is lower in the case of indulgent overprotection. In general, the research hypothesis was confirmed: the maturity of the style characteristics of upbringing and good emotional interaction of mothers with children are predictors for the absence of pronounced fears and moderate anxiety. At the same time, parental styles of mothers that indicate their emotional involvement and gentleness, though not being considered mature, also become predictors for the emotional well-being of preschoolers.

There was studied the role of the model’s age in the successful recognition of emotional expression in peers, adolescents, adults and the elderly by preschoolers. The study aimed to identify the relationship between the successful recognition of emotions in people of different ages and the development of the theory of mind as the ability to understand mental states of other people, including by the external manifestations in their behavior. To assess the performance of recognition, there was created a database of photographs of people from four age groups in which the models showed happiness, sadness, fear and anger. In each series, children were given photographs of one person, and their task was to answer whether the person in the picture was joyful, sad, scared, or angry. The development of the theory of mind ability was evaluated with the help of tests showing understanding of the first and second level visual perspectives, a source of knowledge and false beliefs. The study involved 60 three- and five-year-old children attending kindergartens in Moscow. In order to process the obtained data, the U-criterion, the Z-criterion and Spearman’s correlation coefficient were used. The results of the study demonstrated age-related dynamics in the recognition of basic emotions by children of preschool age and the relationship between the emotion recognition and the theory of mind. No significant preferences were found in recognizing the emotions of their own age group; however, five-year-old children were better at recognizing emotions by the facial expression on children’s faces (peers and adolescents) than those of adults and older people. Interpretation of the results assumes possible impact of interaction experience with peers.

The article deals with the problem of correlation between the mental world understanding (the approach of the «theory of mind») and symbolic functions in preschool age. Both symbolic functions and the theory of mind are based on the capacity for mental representation, necessary to separate reality from internal representations, as well as to manage them and to plan one’s own behavior. This paper presents the results of research on age specificity in the development of individual aspects of symbolic functions and their relationship with the theory of mind at different stages of development. Symbolic functions are studied in three main types of preschoolers’ activities: pretend play, drawing and communication. We developed and tested methods for each of the activities, which allowed us to give a comprehensive assessment of the corresponding abilities in children aged from 3 to 6 years old. The analysis was conducted on a sample of 110 respondents. The results showed differences between indicators of the symbolic functions development in different types of activities in groups characterized by different levels of the theory of mind. The number of connections between the theory of mind and indicators of the symbolic functions development increases at the age of six. The greatest number of connections was found when assessing the understanding of false belief, which is a key marker of the theory of mind. We also found a tendency to later incorporation of the theory of mind into the understanding of symbolic means than into the use. In general, the data allows us to combine previously scattered ideas about the manifestation of symbolic functions in different types of activities and present the specificity of their changes during the development from a low to a high level of the theory of mind.

Today, in the heyday of consumption and materialistic values, real estate can be seen as an adequate marker of an individual’s position in the social hierarchy. At the same time, housing as the good has a number of characteristics that can be interpreted in terms of prestige and subjective assessments of comfort and quality. Therefore, it was important for us to identify and characterize housing clusters of the population according to the typical practices of administering and using real estate and to determine the correlation between the socio-economic and housing status of citizens. The empirical base of the study was the results of a semi-formalized survey of citizens conducted in 2018 in three cities/towns of the Kirov region: Kirov, Vyatskiye Polyany and Kirovo-Chepetsk. The paper presents the author’s classification, sociological «portraits» of the main housing strata of the townspeople and estimates of their fullness in towns of different size. Factors in the formation of the housing status include scarce resources both of housing itself (living space, novelty, comfort indicators) and of residents (housing investment opportunities, education and mobility levels). The regional center can be considered the most successful in terms of the housing subjectivity of the population, since almost half of the citizens have a housing status above the basic and demonstrate a balanced ratio of economic, housing and socio-cultural resources. The size of the city affects the prestige of districts, the availability of housing comfort indicators and the fullness of housing clusters. In smaller towns, proximity to the center does not practically affect the quality and prestige of housing. Representatives of the most successful housing clusters are characterized by social reservedness. Normally, the educational, economic and housing status in all clusters directly correlate with each other.

Branding of small towns and rural settlements is associated with problems in the field of management, resource support and the image of the territory. Meanwhile, the development of small town and rural settlement brands is possible through effective policies or funding from state bodies and commercial organizations. Sociocultural projects are transformed into a brand of the territory and can become one of the urban planning tools (they help in creating jobs, solving environmental problems, and attracting potential partners). The purpose of this article is to characterize the sociocultural projects of LLC Lukoil-Perm implemented in small towns and rural settlements in terms of their becoming territory brands. The empirical base of the study is materials of a survey conducted among residents of the city of Perm, towns of Dobryanka and Cherdyn, Ilyinsky and Perm districts about their attitude toward sociocultural projects being implemented. The authors evaluate three components of a sociocultural project transformation into a brand: 1) the recognizability (awareness) level; 2) the degree of loyalty among citizens; 3) the importance of projects for the development of the territory. This study clarifies the idea of a successful sociocultural project in small towns and rural settlements. Provided marketing campaigns are continued in an effective way, the considered objects can become examples of successful small territory brands.

The aim of the study was to determine the occurrence of different religious practices in different categories of migrants and to identify religious groups with different acculturation strategies. In 2017, we interviewed 231 nonethnic migrants from Central Asian countries living in Ekaterinburg with the help of the standardized interview method. With an increase in the time spent in Ekaterinburg, both Muslims and Christians show increased number of religious practices used. Thus, with an increase in the duration of stay in the city, Muslims become more oriented toward the preservation of national and cultural identities, while those who have specified their religious affiliation as Christianity show orientation toward inclusion in the new non-Muslim culture. The religious activity of migrants is influenced by socio-demographic factors. With an increase in the level of education, religiosity weakens; with the transition from the female to the male gender group, it intensifies. Based on the indicators showing the degree of identification with the native and Russian culture and using the factor analysis, there was performed a comparative analysis of three religious groups of migrants: 1) those who have identified Islam as their religious affiliation and do the maximum number of religious practices; 2) those who have identified Islam as their religious affiliation but are not involved in any religious practice; 3) those who have specified Christianity as their religious affiliation. In the first group, both the orientation toward inclusion in Russian culture and the preservation of national-cultural identity are highly developed. In the second group, both tendencies are poorly manifested. In the third group, the tendency toward the preservation of national-cultural identity is undeveloped, while the tendency toward inclusion in Russian culture is developed only in some indicators. Relying on the theory of acculturation by J. Berry, we can talk about the predisposition of the first group of migrants to the integration strategy of acculturation, while the second group is predisposed to the marginal strategy. We defined the strategy of the third group as incomplete assimilation. We consider the integration strategy which is peculiar to group 1 (actively practicing Muslims) to be the most optimal and conflict-free strategy.

The review of teaching, scientific, and organizing activity of Doctor of Psychology, of Corresponding Member of Russian Academy of Education, Honoured Worker of Science of Russian Federation, Professor B.A. Vyatkin is presented.