Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 7, PPC, 2013

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Authors: Yolanda Zografova

The wide range of transformations subsequent to the enlargements of the European community reverberate in all important spheres of the way of life. The individual and social psychic experience the important influence of the enlargement processes and so do the interhuman, intergroup and cross-cultural relations. To a mutual intergroup tolerance and the lacking conflicts integration of foreign citizens, of immigrants and refugees in a certain country, lead the importance of a collective European identity and the formation of commonly shared values, norms and rules. This is found to be a controversial and uneasy process. Social knowledge and social psychology in particular could help elaborate new models of relations on a supra-individual level directed toward research on collective phenomena through interdisciplinary approach.

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Authors: Sarah R. Edwards, Verlin B. Hinsz

86 male university students completed an assessment battery regarding their attitudes towards women and beliefs about sexual violence, as well as their own intentions to be sexually violent. They read five vignettes depicting different situations in which women were raped, and answered questions about what they thought happened in the vignettes, i.e. whether the actions depicted were rape. Results showed only one of the constructs, acceptance of sexual violence, predicted men’s ability to recognize rape scenarios, whereas hostility towards women, adversarial sexual beliefs, rape myth acceptance and sex role stereotyping were not significant after acceptance of sexual violence was accounted for. Furthermore, men’s acceptance of sexual violence mediated the relationship of their perceptions of rape vignettes and their self-reported intentions to be sexually violent. Implications for further research in sexual violence and interventions to prevent acts of aggression towards women are discussed.

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Authors: Ivana Poledňová

Anxiety is a recurrent topic in personality psychology of today. According to Z. Matějček’s (1991) estimation, the issue of anxiety assumes the third place as for the number of clients in children’s counselling service (behind the issue of intellectual capabilities and ADHD) in the Czech Republic. In children where it occurs to a higher degree, it can have a negative impact on their socialisation, achievements, development of self-confidence. The most influential factor in developing an anxious personality appears to be family environment. If the family fails to satisfy the child’s basic needs – feeling of security and confidence – the child’s development can be in jeopardy. The current research is concentrated on how the style of parenting in families (the so-called parenting styles) is related to anxiety in children at a younger school age. The aim of the research is to find out what relationship there is between the individual components of parenting in families (positive – negative component, component of requirements – freedom) and anxiety in eight-year-olds. These relationships were inquired into from mothers’ perspective by means of questionnaire surveys (Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale and Questionnaire for acquiring the parenting style in family). The data from 407 mothers of eight-year-old children have been analysed. An assumption that anxiety in children of younger school age is significantly influenced by parenting styles in family has been confirmed. The most anxious children appear to be children raised in families with a negative parental emotional involvement towards the child and at the same time with discordant control. They were also some differences in the importance of individual components of parenting by fathers and mothers for anxious orientation of the child identified.

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Authors: Ilona Skuja, Aleksejs Vorobjovs, Larisa Abelite

In order to be able to correct the asocial behaviour of adolescents, several factors that can have POSITIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE FAMILY an effect on the issue must be understood, these being biological, social, and psychological, as well as understanding the context of the situation itself. Various methods were used to research valuable adolescent family environments, including the questionnaire entitled Positive and Destructive Family, which was developed by Russian authors (Опросник “Конструктивно-деструктивная семья” (КДС), Эйдемиллер, Юстицкис). Since this methodology was not available to researchers in Latvian, the first step to be taken was to adapt this method to the cultural environment of Latvia. (The author’s consent has been received for the use of the questionnaire in scientific work.) The adaptation of the method allows the following steps to be implemented (Hambleton & Patsula, 1998; 1999; 2000; Van de Vijver & Hambleton, 1996): the translation and backward translation of questionnaire observing the context of the cultural environment; empirical verification of the translated questionnaire, thereby establishing its reliability and validity in accordance with the psychometric indicators used to provide a validity check on the factors illustrated in the source survey; the administration of the survey in the new cultural environment; documentation showing the adaptation of the questionnaire and the development of the interpretation of the survey’s values. To date, only some of the aforementioned steps have been implemented and presented. Respondents from sixty families participated in the survey (all of whom were aged in group of 31-68, and who included 42 women and eighteen men). The survey consists of twenty statements to which respondents will reply either positively or negatively (this being the dichotomy scale). Further tasks are related to the complete adaptation and application there of in population surveys in Latvia. Another method for family study that has been adapted in Latvia provides more extensive opportunity for further empirical studies, and will also provide a useful set of instruments for practitioners in psychology.

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Authors: Arkadiusz Urbanek

The research tackles the issue of the reconstruction of childhood experiences of recidivists. The aim of these reflections is to search for cause and effect relation between socialisation experiences and further criminogenic lifestyle. It is an interdisciplinary work due to the fact that the issue of socialisation, transmission of behaviour patterns and environmental influences reflect scientific domains of psychology, criminology and resocialisation pedagogy. Accomplishing the objective to reconstruct experiences and their relation with subsequent deviant activities a source material from auto-anamnestic interviews was applied. During the research 100 respondents aged 22 to 30 were interviewed. Each of them has already been sentenced repeatedly for criminal offences, serving the punishment of deprivation of liberty. The research was conducted in 2013. In terms of methodology the data analysis concentrated on the qualitative model of structural and reconstruction research, whereas the results were presented within cause-effect matrixes. The construction of each matrix was designed to classify and present common areas of experiences that occurred within biographies of the individual respondents. Therefore, the research, despite its qualitative nature, categorised the socialisation experiences and the predicators of criminogenic lifestyle subject to subgroup classification. The procedure of analysis was dual, i.e. the cause matrixes of 33 random cases were firstly designed, and then applied to replicate the experiences of the rest of the respondents from the group. It allowed not only to distinguish similar experiences but also consolidated the matrixes as tools for further interpretation. The results of research of socialisation experiences and predicators of criminogenic lifestyle are applicable for penitentiary resocialisation practice and psychological support for the prisoners. Moreover, the research results revealed crucial areas of disturbances, such as isolation from the relatives, void of emotional contacts, susceptibility to deviant group influences, or reducing the hierarchy of values to the desires of possession, unfulfilled in their childhood.

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Authors: Yolanda Zografova

The dynamically ongoing processes of integration are among the crucial premises for the development of contemporary interpersonal, intergroup and cross-cultural relations, attitudes, conflicts and more. The research problem here directs to an analysis, based on ESS data collected in 8 countries, rounds 2006 and 2008, on the extent to which Europeans' personal orientations significantly influence the attitudes towards ethno-national diversity, in this case, towards two social groups: immigrants coming from poorer countries outside Europe and people with different sexual orientation. Furthermore, the influence of the same factors on the civic activeness and involvement in the social-political processes has been followed. Through regressive analysis the important effect of the co-otherness orientation (a concept developed by Sicakkan, 2003), the orientation to success and traditionalism on all included dependent variables has been proved. The expectations for predicting effects of the three personal orientations have been confirmed regarding the civic involvement and tolerance to diversity. Simultaneously the necessity of working EU politics to deal with the risks of emerging negative attitudes has been pointed out in relation to the broad immigrant and refugee wave to European countries.