Publications

Recent years have witnessed a significant growth in the Russian-speaking community in Montreal, Canada. However, little is currently known about the predictors of psychological adjustment in immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU). In this study we explored the expectations that this group of immigrants (N = 271) hoped to fulfill in their adopted society, the extent to which these expectations have been fulfilled, and the impact of fulfilled expectations on psychological adjustment. We found that the degree of fulfilled expectations was significantly associated with better psychological adjustment independent of personality traits, language proficiency, and acculturation. These findings contribute to the literature on cross-cultural adaptation of immigrants from the FSU and highlight the potential importance of expectations for the study of acculturation more generally.

It is commonly believed that the visual system requires oculomotor information to perceive depth from binocular disparity. However, any effect of the oculomotor information on depth perception is too restricted to explain depth perception under natural viewing conditions. In this study, I describe a computational model that can recover depth from a stereo-pair of retinal images without using any oculomotor information. The model shows that, at least from a computational perspective, any oculomotor information is not necessary for perceiving depth from the stereo retinal images.

For several decades the Soviet academic psychology community was isolated from the West, yet after the collapse of the Soviet Union each of the 15 countries went their own way in economic, social, and scientific development. The paper analyses publications from post-Soviet countries in psychological journals in 1992–2017, i.e. 26 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over the period in question, 15 post-Soviet countries had published 4986 papers in psychology, accounting for less than one percent of the world output in psychological journals. However, the growth of post-Soviet countries’ output in psychological journals, especially that of Russia and Estonia, is observed during this period. Over time, post-Soviet authors began to write more papers in international teams, constantly increasing the proportion of papers in which they are leaders and main contributors. Their papers are still underrepresented in the best journals as well as among the most cited papers in the field and are also cited lower than the world average. However, the impact of psychological papers from post-Soviet countries increases with time. There is a huge diversity between 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of contribution, autonomy, and impact. Regarding the number of papers in psychological journals, the leading nations are Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Georgia. Estonia is the leader in autonomy in publishing papers in psychological journals among post-Soviet countries. Papers from Estonia and Georgia are cited higher than the world average, whereas papers from Russia and Ukraine are cited below the world average. Estonia and Georgia also boast a high number of Highly cited papers.

The relationships between online social networking (OSN) behaviour and users’ self-esteem are as important as well as ambiguous: Both positive and negative self-esteem can encourage users to engage in OSNs.  This work examined whether personality traits and attitudes toward traits can explain this controversy.  Data from 830 users of a local OSN were analysed.  I hypothesised that extraversion and attitudes toward extraversion eliminated correlations between positive self-esteem and users’ popularity (the number of friends and likes).  In contrast, neuroticism and attitudes toward neuroticism failed to eliminate a negative correlation between self-esteem and an indicator of users’ self-validation (the number of impersonal avatars).  This association also remained significant when conscientiousness as well as negative attitudes toward conscientiousness and agreeableness were controlled.  However, self-esteem did not correlate with the two other self-validation indicators―the number of posts and portraits.  This study casts doubt on the possibility of direct associations between positive self-esteem and users’ popularity beyond such factors as extraversion.  Nevertheless, it lends partial support to the association between negative self-esteem and users’ self-validation such as the use of impersonal avatars even when other personality characteristics are considered.

Environmental identity is a self-concept that incorporates and is defined by a relationship with nature; it is useful for predicting relevant social attitudes and behavior. In the current paper, the concept is investigated in three empirical studies using the Environmental Identity (EID) scale. Study 1 (n = 222) was devoted to validating the Russian version of the EID scale. Along with the EID scale, we measured environmental attitudes with the New Environmental Paradigm and Global Awareness of Consequences scales. Results showed that, in line with the original version, the Russian version has a one-factor structure and good internal consistency (α = .88), and is positively connected with environmental concern, global awareness of consequences, egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values. Study 2 (n = 94) investigated the connection between EID and attitudes toward the plant world using the People and Plants questionnaire. EID predicted all variables describing people’s attitudes towards plants: Joy, Aesthetics, Experience of interaction with plants, Closeness to nature, and Ecology. Finally, Study 3 (n = 200) examined the connection between EID and empathy with nature and people. Dispositional Empathy with Nature and Interpersonal Reactivity Index scales were used. It was revealed that EID was positively connected and contributed to both types of empathy, more strongly impacting empathy with nature. It is concluded that the Russian version of the EID scale is a valid and reliable instrument. In addition, the EID concept seems to relate to a more general ability to connect with things external to oneself. As such, it has the potential to be helpful in forming psychotherapeutic programs and in designing restorative environments.

Ligation of the sphenopalatine and posterior nasal arteries is indicated for posterior epistaxis as initial treatment or when conservative measures fail. In some patients, a transnasal approach or its alternative transantral approach are not possible due to tumor filling the nasal corridor, pterygopalatine fossa, or maxillary sinus. Aim of this study was to evaluate feasibility of endoscopically assisted transoral approach for the ligation of the maxillary artery (MA). Six fresh cadaver specimens (12 sides), previously prepared with intravascular injections of colored latex, were dissected. A combined transnasal and transoral approach exposed the MA from the deep belly of the temporalis muscle laterally to its terminal branches medially. Anatomical relationships of the MA with the deep belly of the temporalis muscle and the lower head of the lateral pterygoid muscle, and feasibility of access to the MA via a transoral approach were assessed. In all specimens, the MA was found at the point where horizontal fibers of the lower head of the lateral pterygoid muscle cross the vertical fibers of the deep belly of the temporalis muscle. In 5 specimens, the artery ran anteriorly and laterally to lower head of the lateral pterygoid muscle, and in 1 specimen, it ran posteriorly and medially to this muscle, diving between its fibers. The modified endoscopically assisted transoral approach is feasible to ligate the MA. It can be used for proximal vascular control in cases when transnasal and transantral approaches are not viable.

Impoverished early care environments are associated with developmental deficits in children raised in institutional settings. Despite the accumulation of evidence regarding deficits in general cognitive functioning in this population, less is known about the impact of institutionalization on language development at the level of brain and behavior. We examined language outcomes in young adults and adolescents raised in institutions (n = 23) as compared to their socioeconomic status and age peers raised in biological families (n = 24) using a behavioral language assessment and linguistic event-related potentials (ERPs). Controlling for intelligence, adults with a history of institutionalization demonstrated deficits in lexical and grammatical development and spelling. Analyses of ERP data revealed significant group differences in the dynamic processing of linguistic stimuli. Adults with a history of institutionalization displayed reduced neural sensitivity to violations of word expectancy, leading to reduced condition effects for temporo-spatial factors that tentatively corresponded to the N200, P300/N400, and phonological mismatch negativity. The results suggest that language is a vulnerable domain in adults with a history of institutionalization, the deficits in which are not explained by general developmental delays, and point to the pivotal role of early linguistic environment in the development of the neural networks involved in language processing.

Working memory, a fundamental cognitive function that is highly dependent on the integrity of the prefrontal cortex, is known to show age-related declines across the typical healthy adult lifespan. Moreover, we know from work in neurophysiology that the prefrontal cortex is disproportionately susceptibly to the pathological effects of aging. The n-back task is arguably the most ubiquitous cognitive task for investigating working memory performance. Many functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies examine brain regions engaged during performance of the n-back task in adults. The current meta-analyses are the first to examine concordance and age-related changes across the healthy adult lifespan in brain areas engaged when performing the n-back task. We compile data from eligible fMRI articles that report stereotaxic coordinates of brain activity from healthy adults in three age-groups: young (23.57 ± 5.63 years), middle-aged (38.13 ± 5.63 years) and older (66.86 ± 5.70 years) adults. Findings show that the three groups share concordance in the engagement of parietal and cingulate cortices, which have been consistently identified as core areas involved in working memory; as well as the insula, claustrum, and cerebellum, which have not been highlighted as areas involved in working memory. Critically, prefrontal cortex engagement is concordant for young, to a lesser degree for middle-aged adults, and absent in older adults, suggesting a more gradual linear decline in prefrontal cortex engagement. Our results provide important new knowledge for improving methodology and theories of cognition across the lifespan.

The perception of a pair of contours in a retinal image cannot be understood simply by adding up the perceptions of the individual contours, especially when they form a perpendicular junction, or are parallel to one another. It is the relationship among the contours that determines what is perceived. Note that it is hard to actually compare the perception of such configurations quantitatively. We managed to do this by testing the perception of such configurations in three psychophysical experiments in which the perception was characterized by measuring the orientation threshold of a single contour. This threshold was estimated by using a modified Method of Constant Stimulibased on the assumption that contours forming a configuration are perceived individually, and that they are integrated linearly. This assumption made the quantitative comparison of the perceived configurations possible. We found that changes of the estimated threshold depended on the type of the configuration, specifically thresholds estimated from a perpendicular junction were substantially lower than thresholds estimated from a single contour or from a non-perpendicular junction. The lowest thresholds were observed when the threshold was estimated from a pair of parallel contours. These results suggest that the visual system is sensitive to perpendicular junctions and parallel contours in a retinal image. Keywords: Orientation discrimination; Angle discrimination; Orientation threshold; Parallelism; Perpendicularity; Method of Constant Stimuli; Contour configuration

The article presents pilot data from a study conducted as part of a large project investigating the impact of socialization on child development supported by a Grant from the Government of the Russian Federation (№14.Z50.31.0027, PI: Grigorenko). The purpose of the study was to investigate indicators of psychological, social and emotional well-being in adults with experience of institutionalization in comparison with peers who grew up in biological families. We used scales from the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). Results showed no significant differences between the group of orphanage graduates and the comparison group. However, using classification procedures we established that living conditions (separate apartment vs. a "public" space - a communal apartment or a dormitory) is an important variable predicting group belonging based on well-being indices. Thus, it appears that in adulthood, it is not the history of institutionalization but the actual living environment that is associated with indicators of the psychological, social and emotional well-being of orphanage graduates.

Purpose - This paper investigates relationships among correlates of individual innovative activity: creativity, innovativeness, novelty seeking, and intelligence.

Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from 202 students of the Higher School of Economics (123 females and 79 males).

Findings- The findings revealed significant relations between intelligence and fluency of participants’ creative performances, as well as novelty seeking and innovativeness.

Research limitations/implications - Limitations include the correlation design, the sample of students, and the self-reported measures for novelty seeking and innovativeness.

Practical implications- The paper proposes a number of implications for researchers and practitioners who deal with innovation. The results of the study can be applied to various procedures and stages of innovation management.

Originality/value – The study contributes to knowledge on psychological correlates of innovation on an individual level, such as creativity, innovativeness, novelty seeking, and intelligence, as well as produces an empirically validated model of the relationships among them.

We studied how people ‘‘cross the Rubicon” when making personal goal selections. In Studies 1 and 2 participants rated the self-concordance of four candidate goals, two with intrinsic and two with extrinsic content, before selecting two goals to actually pursue. Intrinsic goal content predicted higher selfconcordance, as did matching between goal content and participant values and motives. Selfconcordance in turn explained participants’ actual goal-selections. In longitudinal study 2, intrinsic goal selection predicted increased well-being. In experimental Study 3, participants randomly assigned to rate candidate goals prior to selection made more intrinsic selections on average, compared to those not afforded this opportunity. We conclude that considering one’s motivations for various candidate goals prior to selecting among them can improve one’s goal choices.  

Background. During the last decade life calling has become a dynamically developing research area in psychology, management, and counseling. However, it has not been empirically investigated in Russia, in spite of a rich intellectual and spiritual tradition, and abundant research on related constructs, such as personal meaning.

Objective. The aim of the present study is an initial qualitative exploration of the concept of calling in Russian culture.

Design. Qualitative document analysis was employed to examine open-ended responses from 104 college students regarding their definition of calling and actions they undertook to discern and implement that calling.

Results. It was revealed that the participants saw calling as something more than a mere job, were intrinsically motivated to find it and dedicated themselves to it, associated calling with the usage of their abilities, and at the same time expected it to make them more energized and bring them success without considerable effort. While some participants felt called to a specific domain, the majority indicated abstract other or self-oriented callings. Regarding implementation of calling, the participants divided into two groups: those who did something specific, such as studying and practicing, and those who did “everything” or “nothing”.

Conclusion. These results are largely in line with similar findings in other cultures. The results can be used in career guidance in educational institutions, as well as in private counseling. Specific recommendations for practice, as well as directions for future research are explored.

Psychological studies show the effect of mortality salience (MS) on attitudes and behavioral patterns in different spheres of social life, particularly, in intergroup relationships. This study examines the influence of MS on attitudes toward national outgroups. In line with terror management theory (TMT), previous studies indicate a contradictory impact of death-related thoughts. Reminders of death enhance unfavorable attitudes toward all national outgroups, however, MS reinforces the negative attitudes only toward unfriendly countries or toward those perceived as threatening. To shed light on the influence of MS, we conducted two experimental studies that were differentiated by MS manipulation and the specifics of the outgroups. In Study 1 we actualized the reminders of death through military news, whereas in Study 2 by the presentation of terrorism news (close and distant). In Study 1 (N = 180) we analyzed the impact of MS on attitudes toward Ukraine, Belarus, and Estonia. The results showed that MS mostly reinforced the unfavorable attitudes toward ‘unfriendly’ and ‘neutral’ countries. Study 2 (N = 242) focused on MS and attitudes toward Ukraine, Belarus, the USA, and China. The results indicated that MS enhanced negative attitudes toward Ukraine as an ‘unfriendly’ country. However, the close or distant terrorism-related content did not illustrate the specific influence on attitudes toward national outgroups.

Our study examined the effects of mortality salience (MS) on attitudes toward state control in different domains in Russia. Using the theory of Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (CMSC) and the Terror Management Theory (TMT), we put forward two alternative hypotheses. Based on the CMSC, MS would enhance the approval of state control in different spheres, while, in line with TMT, the MS effect would be dependent on pre‐existing views. The participants in the study were 450 Russian students who completed a questionnaire to measure attitudes toward state control in six spheres of life (the economy, the mass media, political parties, social organisations, science and education). After a week, they were randomly assigned one of three conditions—MS, frightening, and a neutral condition—and again completed the questionnaire on political attitudes. Our results showed that MS mostly provokes “control shifting,” confirming the CMSC's hypothesis. However, a separate analysis conducted among people with different pre‐existing political attitudes has revealed that “control shifting” is more pronounced for freedom‐oriented participants. We discuss these findings in line with alternative views on the nature of the MS effect and specifics of socio‐political context.

Plastic bags create large amounts of waste and cause lasting environmental problems when inappropriately discarded. In 2015, England introduced a mandatory five pence (US$0.06/€0.06) charge to customers for each single-use plastic bag taken from large stores. Combining a longitudinal survey (n=1,230), supermarket observations (n=3,762), and a longitudinal interview study (n=43), we investigated people’s behavioural and attitudinal responses to the charge. We show that all age, gender, and income groups in England substantially reduced their plastic bag usage within one month after the charge was introduced, with interviewees highlighting the ease of taking their own bags. Support for the bag charge also increased among all key demographic groups. Increased support for the plastic bag charge in turn predicted greater support for other charges to reduce plastic waste, suggesting a ‘policy spillover’ effect. Results indicate a broad and positive effect of the bag charge, which appears to have catalysed wider waste awareness among the British public. This may facilitate the introduction of other policies to eliminate avoidable single-use plastics and packaging.

Attempts to estimate the contribution made by motor activity to insight problem solving is hindered by a lack of detailed description of motor behavior. The goal of this study was to develop and put to the test a novel method for studying the dynamics of insight problem solving based on a quantitative analysis of ongoing motor activity. As a proper task model, we chose the nine-dot problem (Maier, 1930), in which solvers had to draw a sequence of connected line segments. Instead of using the traditional pen-and-paper way of solving the nine-dot problem we asked participants to use their index finger to draw line segments on the surface of a tablet computer. We are arguing that successful studying of the role of motor activity during problem solving requires the distinction between its instrumental and functional role. We considered the functional role on the motor activity as closely related to the on-line mode of motor planning.

The goal of Experiment 1 was to explore the potential power of the method and, at the same time, to assay the patterns of motor activity related to on-line and off-line modes of motor planning. Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to uncover the potential impact of preliminary motor training on the motor output of successful and unsuccessful problem solvers. In these experiments, we tested hypotheses on how preliminary motor training, which presumably played a functional role in Experiment 2 and an instrumental role in Experiment 3, affects the motor activity of a problem solver and hence their effectiveness in solving the problem.

The three experiments showed consistent results. They suggest that successful solving of the nine-dot problem relies upon the functional role of motor activity and requires both off-line and on-line modes of motor planning, with the latter helping to overcome the perceptual constraints imposed by a spatial arrangement of the nine dots. The method that we applied allows for systematic comparison between successful and unsuccessful problem solvers based on the quantitative parameters of their motor activity. Through it, we found new specific patterns of motor activity that differentiate successful and unsuccessful solvers.

We integrated models of discrimination of immigrants by combining established approaches to prejudice and discrimination towards immigrants (proximate explanations) using assumptions of Evolutionary-Coalitional Theory (ultimate explanations). Based on this perspective, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and multicultural ideology (MCI) were considered as sociofunctional motives for attitudes towards immigrants. We examined relationships between individual differences in beliefs about the social world (dangerous worldview and competitive worldview) as more distal antecedents, and RWA, SDO, and MCI as more proximal antecedents, and the endorsement of discrimination of immigrants in the socioeconomic domain by Russian majority group members as the outcome. Data were collected among 576 participants from 33 regions in Russia, using online social media. MCI predicted endorsement of discrimination of immigrants by Russian majority group members better than did RWA and SDO. SDO predicted only economic aspects of the endorsement of discrimination. The results are discussed within the Russian context, with its ethnically diverse composition of the population and high migration rates.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can be used to modulate brain activity. tACS was shown to induce frequency-, state-, and phase- dependent effects which makes tACS a neurostimulation technique that provides a more valuable predictable outcome. However, the impact of different tACS intensities has not been systematically investigated yet. Here, we proposed to investigate the effects of tACS of the primary motor cortex (M1) delivered at different intensities.

There is a common assumption that application of stimulation for longer duration or for higher intensity leads to more reliable physiological and behavioral effects. However, previous studies performed using different transcranial electrical stimulation methods such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and/or at high-frequency such as tACS at ripple range, showed non-monotonic effect of stimulation intensity. Nevertheless, tDCS and high-frequency tACS potentially rely on different mechanisms of neuromodulation with respect to conventional tACS delivered at EEG range (1 – 70 Hz).

In this study we applied 20 Hz tACS to the primary motor cortex (M1) to investigate potential non-monotonic effect of tACS intensities (ranging from 0.25 mA to 2 mA with 0.25 mA interval between conditions) on the M1 excitability measured as the peak-to-peak amplitude of TMS-induced motor evoked potentials (MEPs). As for control, we used 1 mA 10 Hz (alpha) tACS and a no stimulation condition.

Preliminary results (N = 9) showed increase of MEPs for higher intensities (1.5 mA, 2 mA) of stimulation. In addition, an interesting effect emerged for those subjects with a lower motor threshold which showed a higher MEPs modulation effect of beta-tACS

The concept of a preattentive feature has been central to vision and attention research for about half a century. A preattentive feature is a feature that guides attention in visual search and that cannot be decomposed into simpler features. While that definition seems straightforward, there is no simple diagnostic test that infallibly identifies a preattentive feature. This paper briefly reviews the criteria that have been proposed and illustrates some of the difficulties of definition.