Project manager: Eduard V. Galazhinsky, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Rector of the National Research Tomsk State University
Main executives:
- Tatiana G. Bokhan, Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Department of Psychotherapy and Psychological Counseling of National Research Tomsk State University
- Dmitry A. Leontiev, D., Dr. Sc., is Head of the International laboratory of positive psychology of motivation and personality at Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, Professor of psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University
- Valeriya N. Petrova, PhD in Psychology, Associate professor at the Department of Organizational Psychology of the Faculty of Psychology at National Research Tomsk State University
Abstract:
Quality of Life is an important dependent variable for economics, health care, medicine, sociology, psychology, and theory and practice of public administration. Contemporary interdisciplinary approaches are expected to provide an integrative evaluation of living standards, welfare and well-being (Veenhoven, 2007; 2012; Diener, Ryan, 2009, Ilic et al, 2010, Schalock, 2004, Fryback, 2010, Carlquist et al., 2017). However, there is no integrative approach to the interpretation and operationalization of life quality based on the understanding of psychological mechanisms of transforming objective conditions into subjective experiences and life situations. At the methodological level this is expressed in the co-existence of more than a thousand of different methods and procedures for assessing the quality of life. Unfortunately, results obtained by these instruments are often incommensurable. Surprisingly little is known about a person’s life and well-being is affected by their personality potential, subjective importance of specific domains of life, and so on. Meanwhile, it is these variables that determine the choice of a more conscious, healthy and comfortable living and active social status – that is, everything that is traditionally associated with a healthy and growing personality and is the target of social initiatives and interventions, including those of the national scale.
It is assumed in the project that subjective attitude towards life that is not reducible to its generalized evaluation can serve as an integrating basis that could enable synthesizing the definitions proposed by different disciplines.
The aim of the project is the development, operationalization and empirical approbation of an interdisciplinary model of life quality structure based on the theoretical synthesis as well as the comparative analysis (both theoretical and empirical one) of psychological measures of the quality of life and well-being as complex variables characterizing integral life evaluation, and the identification of its personality predictors.
The scientific value of the project is due to the importance of identifying psychological factors and mechanisms of person’s evaluation of their life under objective conditions, the analysis of their role in the transformation of external conditions (including those assessed by traditional social and economic methods) into subjective well-being and quality of life of an individual person.
Realization of the project includes three aspects. The theoretical aspect is devoted to the synthesis of the socio-economic approach to the quality of life and the psychological approach to well-being, including the analysis of the integral appraisal of the person’s life as a psychological process moderating the effects of the objective situation, as well as to the identifying possible personality variables mediating and moderating this apprasal. The methodical aspect presupposes the systematization and comparative analysis of psychological instruments of quality of life and well-being, as well as a number of validations of methods and approaches to the assessment of quality of life (Quality of Life Inventory, individualized evaluation, anamnestic method), scales of reference, quality of time and value of life (D.A. Leontiev). The empirical aspect is aimed at revealing the functions of personal potential in the transformation of socioeconomic factors into a subjective appraisals of the person’s life and her objective functioning. It is planned to conduct a series of empirical studies aimed at identifying (1) objective indicators and specific spheres of quality of life that determine the integral appraisal of a person’s life, (2) personal predictors of the quality of life, moderating the transformation of objective conditions (opportunities) into the activities, functioning and subjective well-being of a person.
An approach to understanding and assessment of the quality of life will be offered for the first time, that will integrate achievements in the socioeconomic and clinical psychology-based approaches. An empirical comparison of various components and strategies for the quality of life assessment will be made (in particular, as regards the methods for standardized assessment of the importance of different life domains, individualized methods, methods based on regression analysis, etc.). The mediating and moderating functions of various aspects of the attitude to life and the components of the personality potential will be revealed in relation to the connection between the objective living conditions and subjective quality of life.