Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 10-2, PPC, 2016

60-61

Authors: Sergiy Boltivets

The future of psychological science as we see it depends on our ability to understand the phenomenon of psychogenity of man and of the groups of people in their significance to himself and to every other human being. Psychogenity as we define it, is an ability of the humanized environment to create, reflect, transform, save and expose the constellation of psychic manifestations of the own natural essence of every man as a psychological unity. We consider the humanized environment in the sense broader than that of the social environment as we keep in mind not only the mutual influence of people, but also the fact that human life is mediated by the human environment. The latter is one of the most important components equilibrating human psychogenity, the world exists for man only in its humanized sense.

69-76

Authors: Maria Annarumma, Luigi Vitale, Olga Campiglia

The analysis of the reason-emotion dynamics intersects several disciplinary fields, such as psychology, medicine, informatics, linguistics, neuroscience, with a specific relevance for Education Sciences, as it offers interesting perspectives over its influence on the learning process. Such issues are rooted in philosophical reflections by Plato, Aristotle and later by Descartes, Vico and Kant. These dualistic perspectives will be definitively abandoned in favour of a globalist vision of the mind-body relationship, during the first half of the XX century, particularly thanks to Dewey (1933) who, inspired by Darwin’s theories, was the first to support this unity by recognizing an intersection among physical, mental and environmental processes. Over the last decades, an imperatively anti-dualistic analysis has been developing in the field of neurosciences and cognitive linguistics: on the one hand, cognitivism, considering the mind in its function of symbolic manipulation; on the other hand, connectionism, studying neural networks. Furthermore, recent scientific research has allowed mapping in a detailed - albeit admittedly incomplete manner - the complex activity of the brain and highlighting analogies between elementary connections and complex interactions. The systemic perspective is hence considering “mind and body”, “reason and emotion” as two interconnected and essential aspects of human complexity. In this regard, Damasio’s research shows how participation of the organism to conscious experience returns to the consciousness itself those biological requirements which are essential to legitimate it as an object of scientific study. Knowledge is generated by socio-experiential relationships that play a crucial role within knowledge representation. The mind takes therefore an active role in shaping the representation of the world: understanding does not just consist in a mere reproduction of the external world in our mind; instead, it is a continuous process of creative reconstruction of our perceptive dynamics. Emotion, creativity and rationality are essential elements of the human being, which activate and develop due to personal inclination as well as socio-cultural aspects. Both genetic and social components are decisive in cognitive dynamics, as they represent innate potentials that need to be recognized, understood and exploited.

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Authors: Stanislava Stoyanova

A review of several studies of teachers’ career motivation since Bulgarian Renaissance till nowadays is presented in this paper. 203 Bulgarian teachers in public schools were studied by means of a questionnaire created by Slavchov & Stoyanova (2007) measuring career motivational types, according to Moses’ typology (2003). The career motivational type of Authenticity seekers was the most preferred by the studied Bulgarian teachers, followed by Personal developers and Stability seekers. Career builders as a career motivational type was minor career motivator, the least preferred one by Bulgarian teachers. A lot of significant positive correlations existed between teachers’ career motivational types. Some social-demographic factors (such as gender, specialty, work experience, and age) differentiated teachers’ career motivators. The type of Autonomy seekers was more preferred career motivator by male teachers than by female teachers in correspondence to the traditional stereotypes for men. Longer teachers’ work experience and teachers’ advance in age were related to more frequency of Stability seekers, but less frequency of Novelty seekers career motivator. Preschool and elementary school teachers preferred more strongly Authenticity seekers as a career motivator than teachers in natural sciences and mathematics. Establishing major career motivators for teachers may be related to opportunities for improvement of performance and work satisfaction.

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Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 10, No. 2, PPC, 2016

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2016, PPC

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Authors: Yolanda Zografova

In the past year the international political and social situation changed significantly in Europe and its surrounding regions. The consequences are yet to unfold on a national and local level in terms of individual and societal notions and orientations within the complex events we are facing today. There is an increased number of displaced people due to dramatic events in their home countries, moving to Europe to seek refuge or better economic conditions. This has stimulated the emergence of attitudes, fears, representations within social groups and communities under various forms and often propagated and constructed by mass media, social networks and so on. Societies have gradually orientated towards accepting the diversity of ethnic groups, cultures and religions in the European countries. An increased number of citizens, however, including academics, cultural or other public figures oppose the coming of refugees and migrants and stand against politics of acceptance and recognition of incomers, both on a national and European level.

13-21

Authors: Geert Franzenburg

Re-experiencing of traumatic memories becomes a social core-phenomenon concerning people of advanced age, and, thus, a core-challenge for coping-strategies. Therefore, adult educators and counselors are looking for an appropriate approach how to help their clients coping with such memories successfully. This study aims to demonstrate one possible approach based on religious coping and on the evalua¬tion of published memories of elder German people (Dierig, 2012; Jakobi & Link, 1997), who remember their child¬hood shortly after World War II. It also evaluates published studies about this issue concerning their contribution to educational and/or counseling purposes. One main aspect is the comparison between the deferring, collaborative, and self-directing style of religious coping (Pargament, 1997), compared with secular analogies. Another aspect concerns the question, whether religious people are primary intrinsic or extrinsic oriented. In order to find out, why people prefer a particular strategy, an elementary form of grounded theory is chosen, which facilitates particular key categories and terms. The study does neither intend any own empirical research, nor evaluating therapeutic issues, because it is done from a German educational and counseling point of view. Thus, it emphasizes the religious, psycho-logical, and cultural aspects of experiences and coping-strategies of people, who experienced War and post-war time as children in Germany, or of children expelled from Eastern Europe.

31-38

Authors: Viktoriia Kalamazh

In this research the theoretical principles of psychological analysis of group project activity of students in the process of learning foreign language are defined on the basis of subject-activity, socio-psychological and cognitive paradigms. The approaches of different authors to the understanding of the concept of project and in particular group project activity are considered. The difficulties of the theoretical analysis of this specific notion are indicated due to the considerable variety of subjects, types and forms of the pedagogical activity, academic disciplines regarding which the researches are being carried out. Not disclosed aspects of organizing the group project activity of students are being determined, among them is a project group as an autonomous subject of joint activity for the realization students’ project activity while learning a foreign language; forming psychological readiness of teacher and student to use project method; the role of metacognitive aspect in the surrounding, where the project activity is being carried out; group functioning through the project work as a subject of group examination. It has been indicated that the analysis of project activity as an innovative technology must include its assessment as a condition of student’s developing as a subject of learning activity, his personal, socio-psychological, intellectual and professional self-perfection. Three levels of subjectivity in group project activity are being distinguished: teacher; each particular student; and student project group. Interaction between teacher and student is based on subject-subject relations. An organization of a project activity while learning a foreign language is considered as the one in which the student is moving in order to get the manager position and to master the basis of expert knowledge. Hereby, the main stress is on the group role as a subject of group examination, and also on metacognitive character of the surrounding. On the basis of conducted theoretical analysis, the new understanding of the notion of a group project activity is proposed. It is claimed, that the effectiveness of a group project activity is determined by the level of psychological readiness of students and teachers to implement it.

50-56

Authors: Editorial Board

End, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2016, PPC