Publications

Objective. Adaptation of the scale that measures the collective narcissism level of an individual.

Background. There are some societal problems in modern Russia, such as a huge societal distance and widespread prejudice towards minorities. Collective narcissism is an important aspect of intergroup relations, as being related to outgroup hostility associated with a high level of ingroup identification.

Study design. The study is divided into two parts, both employing a survey consisting of different questionnaires. For both parts, the survey included the adapted version of collective self-esteem scale and its correlates.

Participants. The study included two samples. The first sample included 260 participants (average age 36,8 years; 43% of males). The second representative sample included 1011 participants (average age 35,1 years; 47% of males).

Measurements. For data processing, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, Cronbach coefficient alpha, and correlation analysis were applied in the R Studio software.

Results. Good results of confirmatory factor analysis indicate the presence of reliability-consistency of the scale. The external validity of the scale was also evaluated, as a result we received confirmation of these types of validity.

Conclusions. The scale adapted by the authors is reliable and valid and can be further used for research purposes.

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e. a controlling message) compared to no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly-internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message reduced feelings of defiance relative to the controlling message. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly-internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing: Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges.

The Ambivalent Sexism Theory suggests that there are two complementary types of sexism: hostile (subjectively negative attitude towards gender groups) and benevolent (subjectively positive attitude towards gender groups). In this meta-analysis we analyzed the relationship between ambivalent sexism and attitudes toward male-to-female violence or violent behavior. Violence type, the context of violence, respondents’ gender, the countries’ level of gender inequality, and sample type were tested as moderators. The results showed that both hostile and benevolent sexism independently impact on attitudes toward violence and violent behavior albeit to a different degree. Specifically, the relationship between hostile sexism and attitudes and behavior is stronger than for the benevolent sexism. The type and context of violence moderate the relationship between hostile sexism and attitudes toward violence and violent behavior. Only the country’s gender inequality levels showed a moderation effect for benevolent sexism. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

This study examined the role of different psychological coping mechanisms in mental and physical health during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis with an emphasis on meaning-centered coping.

Method

A total of 11,227 people from 30 countries across all continents participated in the study and completed measures of psychological distress (depression, stress, and anxiety), loneliness, well-being, and physical health, together with measures of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping, and a measure called the Meaning-centered Coping Scale (MCCS) that was developed in the present study. Validation analyses of the MCCS were performed in all countries, and data were assessed by multilevel modeling (MLM).

Results

The MCCS showed a robust one-factor structure in 30 countries with good test-retest, concurrent and divergent validity results. MLM analyses showed mixed results regarding emotion and problem-focused coping strategies. However, the MCCS was the strongest positive predictor of physical and mental health among all coping strategies, independently of demographic characteristics and country-level variables.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that the MCCS is a valid measure to assess meaning-centered coping. The results also call for policies promoting effective coping to mitigate collective suffering during the pandemic.

The ability to exert influence on our emotions plays a significant role in the attainment of our goals. To have control over when and how we experience emotions is thought to be impacted by higher cognitive processes such as executive functions. However, there is inadequate research to support this notion. Hence, we examined the relationship between executive functions – updating, shifting, and inhibition – and emotion regulation strategies – cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. We predicted that updating would positively relate to cognitive reappraisal, while inhibition would positively relate to expressive suppression. Shifting would positively relate to both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Participants completed updating, shifting, and inhibition tasks. Then, they used expressive suppression or cognitive reappraisal strategies in response to unpleasant pictures, accompanied by a physiological recording. Faster updating was associated with a larger heart rate deceleration during reappraisal. Inhibition was associated with more frequent use of suppression. Overall, the results confirm the idea that a higher level of executive functions is partially related to the effective application of emotion regulation strategies. The content of executive function tasks does not affect the association between executive functions and emotion regulation. These findings are important for psychotherapy, as training executive functions could partially help in the treatment of mood-related disorders.

The study of authoritarianism has a long history in the field of psychology; however, much of this research focuses on Western countries, especially the United States. In effort to better understand authoritarianism cross-culturally, we explore the current state of authoritarianism in an important cultural context: Russia. Thus, the current paper explores large-scale research of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in the modern Russian context. Six studies (total N = 1358) included personality traits, basic human values, social beliefs, and intergroup attitudes that allowed us to comprehensively consider authoritarian attitudes in Russia. The results showed that personological profile and pattern of reaction to threat among Russian authoritarians is similar to Western authoritarians. However, economic views inherited from Soviet ideology make Russians differ in their view on economic conservatism supported by Western authoritarians. These data provide insight into the psychology of authoritarianism as well as explore novel aspects of Russian culture.

Foraging as a natural visual search for multiple targets has increasingly been studied in humans in recent years. Here, we aimed to model the differences in foraging strategies between feature and conjunction foraging tasks found by Kristjánsson et al. (2014). Bundesen (1990) proposed the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) as a computational model of attentional function that divides the selection process into filtering and pigeonholing. The theory describes a mechanism by which the strength of sensory evidence serves to categorize elements. We combined these ideas to train augmented Naïve Bayesian classifiers using data from Kristjánsson et al. (2014) as input. Specifically, we attempted to answer whether it is possible to predict how frequently observers switch between different target types during consecutive selections (switches) during feature and conjunction foraging using Bayesian classifiers. We formulated eleven new parameters that represent key sensory and bias information that could be used for each selection during the foraging task and tested them with multiple Bayesian models. Separate Bayesian networks were trained on feature and conjunction foraging data, and parameters that had no impact on the model's predictability were pruned away. We report high accuracy for switch prediction in both tasks from the classifiers, although the model for conjunction foraging was more accurate. We also report our Bayesian parameters in terms of their theoretical associations to TVA parameters, π_j (denoting the pertinence value) and β_i (denoting the decision-making bias).

The purpose of this study was to understand the complex relationships between belief in a just world (BJW), perceived control, perceived risk to self and others, and hopelessness among a globally diverse sample during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The just-world hypothesis suggests that people need to believe in a just world in which they get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Studies have shown that believing in a just world has an adaptive function for individuals. Samples from six countries completed an online questionnaire. A total of 1,250 people participated (934 female) and ages ranged from 16 to 84 years old (M = 36.3, SD = 15.5). The results showed that, when controlling for gender, age, country of residence, and being in a risk group for COVID-19 (e.g., smoker, old age, chronic disease etc.), a stronger personal and general BJW and higher perceived control over the COVID-19 pandemic predicted lower levels of hopelessness. How at-risk participants perceived themselves to be for COVID-19 positively predicted hopelessness, but how risky participants perceived the disease to be for others negatively predicted hopelessness. This study highlights how the distinction between self and others influences hopelessness and how BJW, especially personal BJW, can serve as a psychological resource during times of historic uncertainty.

What keeps regular blood donors coming back, despite the inconvenience and discomfort, thereby maintaining the community's blood supply? We approached 494 people waiting to give blood, 229 Americans and 265 Russians, with a survey that assessed their motivations to donate, their contextual emotions, and their future donation intentions. The Russian sample was older, and many were regulars at the donation centre. The U.S. sample was younger, attending a 3-day college blood drive. Multigroup path analysis results showed that, as hypothesised, in both samples, autonomous donation motivations predicted contextual emotions and future donation intentions. Furthermore, contextual emotions partially mediated the motivation-to-future intentions effect. Small differences in results for the two samples, as well as differences in the two national systems for maintaining blood supplies, are discussed.

Objective

Changeability of personality over short-term intervals has increasingly become a focus of research. However, the role played by argumentation interventions in short-term variations has scarcely been examined. 

Methods

In two experiments (Ns = 363 and 320), we investigated how processing positive and negative argumentation regarding extraversion (Study 1: watching a lecture; Study 2: elaborating self-invented arguments) affects self-reports on this trait and attitude towards it. The experiments included three waves of measurements with argument manipulation (in favour of or against extraversion) immediately prior to Time 2 (Study 2 also included a control group). 

Results

Mean-level changes in extraversion across time moments, measured with the longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis, were consistently negligible. Conversely, there were some indications that argumentation about extraversion could have immediate short-term effects on attitudes towards this trait. The random-intercept cross-lagged model showed that rank-order consistency stemmed from a trait-like intercept, which was particularly large for trait extraversion compared to the attitude. The autoregressive and cross-lagged effects of residual within-person variation were consistently small and mostly non-significant. 

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that extraversion and the attitude towards it maintained their temporal continuity within three months, even under a single exposure to arguments pro and contra this trait.

The invited IAIR Award Paper by Kunst (2021) published in IJIR asserts that there is a “causality crisis” in acculturation research and critically discusses the current meta-analytical evidence supporting the integration hypothesis. In this commentary, we question this claim in light of our understanding of the acculturation process and its constituent phenomena. Our proposal is to consider acculturation patterns as behavioral syndromes, in which many phenomena are inter-related and which change over the course of acculturation. We also question the claim in Kunst’s paper about meta-analytical evidence, and end with some proposals for future research on acculturation.

Cross-national research claims that the crime-and-corruption gap between relatively poor and relatively rich countries is larger in more demanding climates that require more capital to cope with the climate.  However, this claim is premature because countries differ in a many confounding ways including histories and politics. We, therefore, re-tested the climato-economic context of violent crime and corruption within Russia, a country with considerable regional differences in climate and income. Across the eighty-five administrative units of Russia, the crime-and-corruption gap between relatively poor and relatively rich regions is smaller in more demanding climates. Harsher climates are so strongly associated with higher crime levels that the potential influence of differences in wealth becomes negligible. Furthermore, harsher climates are so strongly associated with higher corruption rates in poorer regions but lower corruption rates in richer regions that the potential influence of the climatic demands as such becomes negligible.

Previous research has firmly established the efficacy of Motivational Interviewing (MI) in helping individuals to overcome their alcohol addiction. However, there is a large diversity in the sizes of these effects and it is not clear how the different MI strategies and techniques contribute to treatment outcomes. We compared the efficacy of three MI intervention plans using a randomized matched pre-test/post-test design spanning a 10-week period. The participants were 45 French individuals (29 male and 16 female) seeking treatment for alcohol dependence who received 5 sessions of MI. Participants from all groups reported moderate to strong changes (d > 0.80) in alcohol consumption, temptation to drink, abstinence self-efficacy, internal motivation to change behavior, and well-being (anxiety, depression, satisfaction with life, and self-esteem). ANCOVA analyses showed that the changes in alcohol consumption, temptation to drink, and abstinence self-efficacy were weakest in the group that only used the internal motivation strategies and strongest in the group using a combination of the internal motivation strategies, decisional balance, and self-efficacy strategies. The findings support the efficacy of a combination of three MI strategies. Future research comparing the effects of different MI intervention plans could help to ensure consistently effective alcohol addiction treatment.

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from 41 countries (N = 55,015) collected as part of the PsyCorona project, a crossnational longitudinal study on responses to COVID-19. Our predictions were tested through multilevel and SEM models, treating participants as nested within countries. Results showed that people’s concern with COVID- 19 threat was related to greater desire for tightness which, in turn, was linked to more negative attitudes towards immigrants. These findings were followed up with a longitudinal model (N = 2,349) which also showed that people’s heightened concern with COVID-19 in an earlier stage of the pandemic was associated with an increase in their desire for tightness and negative attitudes towards immigrants later in time. Our findings offer insight into the trade-offs that tightening social norms under collective threat has for human groups.  

Anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and home confinement has been associated with adverse health behaviors, such as unhealthy eating, smoking, and drinking. However, most studies have been limited by regional sampling, which precludes the examination of behavioral consequences associated with the pandemic at a global level. Further, few studies operationalized pandemic-related stressors to enable the investigation of the impact of different types of stressors on health outcomes. This study examined the association between perceived risk of COVID-19 infection and economic burden of COVID-19 with health-promoting and health-damaging behaviors using data from the PsyCorona Study: an international, longitudinal online study of psychological and behavioral correlates of COVID-19. Analyses utilized data from 7,402 participants from 86 countries across three waves of assessment between May 16 and June 13, 2020. Participants completed self-report measures of COVID-19 infection risk, COVID-19-related economic burden, physical exercise, diet quality, cigarette smoking, sleep quality, and binge drinking. Multilevel structural equation modeling analyses showed that across three time points, perceived economic burden was associated with reduced diet quality and sleep quality, as well as increased smoking. Diet quality and sleep quality were lowest among respondents who perceived high COVID-19 infection risk combined with high economic burden. Neither binge drinking nor exercise were associated with perceived COVID-19 infection risk, economic burden, or their interaction. Findings point to the value of developing interventions to address COVID-related stressors, which have an impact on health behaviors that, in turn, may influence vulnerability to COVID-19 and other health outcomes.

Creativity represents a young and promising academic field of research. Over the last 20 years, creativity publications have been steadily increasing in number. Of the 20 most all-time prolific creativity scholars in the European Union (EU), only one has retired. The present paper aims at mapping the EU creativity research. We analyzed over 12,000 Web of Science records dated back to 1968 until December 2020, using two bibliometric tools, SciMAT and VOSviewer. The descriptive analysis lists the most prolific authors and journals on the creativity area, the most cited articles, as well as the authors’, institutions’, countries’, and research areas’ bibliometric networks. Moreover, this study presents a thematic analysis and an evolution map of the themes based on keywords. Despite widespread beliefs about the Internet as a tool to make distances illusory, the EU scholars were found to establish collaborations based on geographical, cultural, and, maybe, idiomatic proximity. Engineering, computer science, and education & educational research are the most interconnected areas of research. Innovation as part of the creative process, performance as one of the benefits of implemented creativity, creative cities, the neuroscientific study of creativity, and emotions are relevant topics in the area. A broader concept of the creative and collaborative economy, the impact of technology (e.g., artificial intelligence) on developing creativity, and the study of the brain with neuroscientific tools may become promising lines for future research.

The analysis of the factors that determine attitudes towards intercultural marriage in the Moscow region and the Republic of Buryatia among representatives of the ethnic minority and the majority was presented in the article. Using a moderation analysis, the authors found, that among the Russians in Buryatia, in the case of perceived cultural security, ethnic identity did not contribute to attitudes towards intercultural marriage, in the case of the threat, on the contrary, it did. For Russians in the Moscow region and Buryats in Buryatia, in the case of the perceived threat to own culture, identification with their region contributed to the positive attitude towards interethnic marriage.

The study extends the approach of the Stereotype Content Model to ethnic stereotype content beyond intergroup relations within societies by exploring the North-South hypothesis for competence and warmth. This paper claims that the “desperate” (resource-poor and unpredictable) of lower-latitude climate regions and “hopeful” (resource-sufficient and stable) ecology higher-latitude climate regions translate into typical aggregate attributes and are afterward generalized to the status of all their residents. Further, people use this information as a diagnostic for judgments about the economic value or burden of ethnic groups in their society. Based on the data about aggregated means of competence and warmth for 77 ethnic groups in 38 regions, the multivariate models show that ethnic groups from warmer climates and from lower wealth countries are given lower evaluation in both competence and warmth stereotypes. However, ethnic groups from more northerly countries are also given a lower evaluation in warmth. Ethnic stereotypes reflect both features of ethnic groups in countries of origin (e.g., the North-South polarization) and group characteristics carried by ethnic groups in new contexts (i.e., intergroup relations). Thus, reactions to ethnic groups seem to differ partly depending on countries of origin mixed in people’s minds with information about geography, climate, and national wealth in the social perception process. Stereotypes associated with ethnic groups across countries to some extent track the stereotypes associated with the ecologies in which these ethnic groups are assumed to predominantly live. This highlights the importance of the establishment or expansion of policies and programs regarding international inequality.

The aim of this study is to examine how different factors (multiple stigmatization, perceived social status, and workers’ sex) as well as their interactions are associated with the dehumanization of workers. In the preliminary study (N = 991), we selected 16 occupations with different types of stigmatization and perceived status relevant to the Russian socio-cultural context. In two experimental studies (N1 = 1060, N2 = 1081), we demonstrated that multiple stigmatization increases metaphor-based and attribute-based animalistic but not mechanistic dehumanization: low-status workers were more animalistically dehumanized than high-status workers; the high status decreased the metaphor-based animalistic dehumanization of occupations with multiple stigmatization, and the attribute-based animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization of workers regardless of their stigmatization; and male workers were more mechanistically dehumanized than female ones but there were no differences in animalistic dehumanization. The results obtained are discussed in the context of understanding the specificity of workers’ dehumanization and the possible consequences of this dehumanization.

Ehlers-Danlos-Syndromes (EDS) is a group of hereditary, chronic and potentially disabling conditions. Few studies have tested the effects of psychological interventions to increase well-being in this population. We hypothesized that Positive Psychology Interventions (PPI), first applied to healthy and mentally ill subjects, can also be useful for people with somatic conditions and conducted a study to evaluate the efficacy of a five-week online PPI designed to improve well-being in EDS patients. A sample of 132 EDS patients were allocated to three groups: assigned PPI, self-selected PPI, and waitlist control-group (WLC). Measures of positive and negative affect, pain disability, fatigue, and life satisfaction were administered before program start, six weeks later, and one month later. Satisfaction with the program was also evaluated. The results revealed that participants in the self-selected PPI-group, but not in the assigned PPI group, reported significantly lower levels of fatigue and higher levels of positive affect and life satisfaction compared to WLC after six weeks. There were no effects on negative affect and pain disability measures. Finally, 77% of the participants were satisfied or very satisfied with the program. These findings confirm and extend previous research by showing the efficacy of PPI for people with chronic illness under the condition that individuals can choose the program content. From a healthcare perspective, online PPIs could complement treatments aimed at symptom reduction and increase well-being in patients with EDS.