Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 2, 2012, PPC

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Authors: Yulia F. Lakhvich

These words were written by George Bernard Show in the first half of the twentieth century. Now in the twenty first century they still have not lost their relevance. When reading this quote, a whole range of ambiguous emotions evokes. On the one hand, the feelings of embarrassment, shame, rejection, confusion and helplessness emerge. On the other hand, there is a desire to change, transform or develop something, a sense of responsibility for the quality of your own life and the lives of people around you. People really penetrate into the depths of the Universe and have great success in this sense, and yet they can’t learn the laws of human relations with each other. What does it mean "learn to live on the earth as human beings?" This is a difficult question and everyone can give a different reply. In my opinion, "to live on the earth as human beings" means, above all, recognizing the interdependence of people, limited and temporary nature of individual life, but at the same time freedom and responsibility of each person. This awareness enables us to empathize with others, to show compassion, trust and generosity, respect and loyalty, tolerance and appreciation.

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Authors: Simona Maria Glăveanu

In Romania there are only a few parental education programs being carried out, but most of them are not properly/scientifically measured in terms of efficiency. For this reason, the purpose of the research was the implementation and scientific validation of a training program for developing the parental competence. The parental competence was defined as a system of knowledge, skills, capabilities, abilities and habits that would allow the parent to successfully fulfill the parental responsibilities and also prevent/deal with crisis situations in a manner that would contribute to the child’s development (Glăveanu, 2009). The above-mentioned term became widely spread in Romania after 2010, when the Integrated National Strategy for Creating and Developing Parental Competence was published. The Strategy is supported by the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports and its deadline is in the summer of 2012. The 298 parents who participated in the research were selected based on the criteria of average and low parental competence and their children had educational and social adaptation difficulties. The methods used during the research were the formative experiment and the questionnaire-based investigation. The participants were evaluated before and after the training with the Parental Competence Questionnaire (PCQ, developed by the author of the study). The PCQ had five dimensions comprised of a total of 81 items: knowing the specificities of the child between 6 and 11 years of age (alpha=0.69), affective support and stress management (alpha=0.74), disciplining (alpha=0.82), time management (alpha=0.77) and crisis management (alpha=0.77). Each of the PCQ dimensions (which were built in accordance to the conceptualized structure of the parental competence) had a training module dedicated to it. PCQ was validated with the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ, built by Buri in 1991); significant correlations for the two questionnaires occurred (between 0.5 and 0.9). The statistical results obtained by using PCQ six months after the training (Independent-Samples T Test=61.43; df=298; p<0.001) showed significant differences between the experimental group (M=315.81) and the control group (M=243.22); the PCQ results of the experimental group were also compared (Paired-Samples T Test=58.39; df=141; p<0.001) and showed statistically significant differences between the pre-training results (time 1=just before training, M=221.31) and the post-training ones (time 2=graduating training+6 months, M=315.81). Similarly, the scores of the control group at the two chosen moments (time 1: M=221.57 and time 2: M=243.22) indicated a timed evolution, but statistically insignificant of the parental competence (Paired-Samples T Test=34.19; df=155, p=0.07). These results proved the certain and significant influence that the training had over the development of the parental competence, in comparison to the case of the spontaneous growth – thus being confirmed the hypothesis of the study. As a conclusion, the results proved the internal validation of the training program (according to Vaughn’s criteria, 2005). It is yet to be proven the external validation regarding the impact of the training program on the child’s overall development (Kirkpatrick, 2006; Vaughn, 2005) and this will be done by applying the training program on an expanded/national level.

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Authors: Ivana Poledňová, Vladimir Marček, Šárka Portešová

In the presented research, the ideas of Czech adolescents about their future profession were researched. In the research, data from examinations of 17-year-old respondents were analyzed. The views of their future vocation as well as the vocations of significant others (mother, father, significant other) were acquired by a modified version of the REP-test and assessed from the perspective of their favorableness and cognitive complexity. The aim was to detect relations between the assessment of individual vocations, the components of upbringing analyzed by the Czech Questionnaire for Determining the Upbringing Style in Family (Čáp, Boschek) and self-esteem measured by Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. It was discovered that adolescents, while assessing their potential future vocation, are influenced by family upbringing- there is a strong influence of the factor of emotional warmth in family related to a positive relationship to the adolescents’ vocational future. Moreover, it became evident that the more negative view the adolescents have of the individual vocations, the more differentiated they try to perceive them (higher cognitive complexity), probably in order to develop appropriate coping strategies in their future performance or to justify their negative assessment by a more precise, i.e. not “black and white” perspective. However, in a more detailed analysis, it was revealed that vocations viewed as strongly negative and strongly positive are perceived as less differentiated than vocations assessed in a neutral way, which can be explained by the hypothesis of emotional engagement.

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Authors: Guna Svence

The aim of the research is to analyze the psychological problems of the new generation in Latvia at the present moment. The currently existing psychological issues are inherited from the 20s and 30s of the previous century. In Latvia the topicality in the field of psychology has always been associated with a sound development of a physically-fitted, mentally-balanced as well as meaningful personality that might benefit society. Latvian psychological theories are based on the humanistic and philosophical approach that is based on the human ideas from the 90ies of 20th century. Such Latvian psychologists as Imants Plotnieks, Arija Karpova, Dzidra Meikšane and others researched the following topics: ’self-esteem’ ‚‘self-regulation“, ‘self-actualization“, ‘identity“ as well as “positive self-concept“. The scientific issue of this article is to compare and to analyze the two dimensions of the Latvian psychology history, i.e., firstly, what it is based on and, secondly, why the reason of a positive psychology concept is rooted in Latvian traditions. The methodology of the research is meta-analysis, qualitative-quantitative approach, and experimental design from three cases analyse. There are three cases analysed in this article- author of this article and students from Riga Teacher Training and Education management academy, all cases analysed well-being aspect resilience and positive intervention, but there is different aspect of resilience has been analysed in each example. There are some similar ideas from Latvian psychology history are comparing with temporary psychology of Latvia in this article, ideas – close and different with positive psychology as methodological branch of psychology.

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Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 2, 2012, PPC