The current threat of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the transition to distance (online) education in all educational institutions of the country, including universities. A sudden forced change in the form and structure of education has psychological consequences for all the participants in the educational process. The objective of the study presented was to examine the severity of anxiety, career maladjustment, stress levels, and coping strategies among university teachers during the transition to distance (online) education. The sample comprised 169 individual participants (95 women, 74 men) aged 25 to 70 years: 119 university teachers of the Rostov region (mean age = 45 years) and 40 sales specialists as the control group (mean age = 35 years). The study was conducted online from 04.24.2020 to 06.15.2020. The results indicate a general tendency to increasing stress levels and severity of career maladjustment. university teachers have a higher level of professional motivation and less often complain of feeling unwell and of a decrease in cognitive functions. Less adaptive in terms of stable personality parameters respondents are more likely to experience stress and more prone to manifest unmotivated anxiety. They demonstrate a higher level of career maladjustment and subjective discomfort when using the Internet. The preferred coping strategy is to openly complain about work or general negative feelings. Changes in the dynamic personality characteristics of university teachers during distance education are determined by their stable personality characteristics rather than by their age, which is often mentioned as the main factor for adaptation difficulties.

The article is an overview of modern studies of brain organization and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is becoming the subject of more and more attentive study of psychologists due to the fact that it influences the mental development of humans, plays an important role in many professions, and its impairment is a marker of some disorders. Nevertheless, the brain organization and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence have not been studied enough – first studies appeared only in the early 2000s. A review of the literature on the enceph-alographic showed that in rest, people with higher emotional intelligence show greater excitation of the left anterior regions of the brain. When per-ceiving affective stimuli, participants with high emotional intelligence show stronger synchronization of some EEG rhythms. Brain mapping technique made it possible to identify the areas of the brain involved in activities related to emotional intelligence. In regard to genetic correlates of emotional intelligence, some genes of neurotransmitter systems have been associated to this trait: the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene COMT, the dopamine DRD2 receptor gene, the serotonin receptor gene HTR2A, and the BDNF brain neurotrophic factor gene.

Background. Personality is not simply an end product, but rather, it is a process. Therefore, empirical work on personal meaning-building should examine the genesis of meaning and provide a content-based description of personality in terms of personality traits. Such a description suggests a systemic view of personality, where the meaning-based approach is supplemented with the definition of personality traits. The value and meaning potential of personality encompasses three dimensions: worldview, behavior, and cognition. Objective. The aim of this study is to identify the properties of personality, reflecting the features of polar strategies of meaning formation in acmeological terms by age, gender, and professional characteristics. Design. The present study considers the influence of various acmeological factors on meaning-building and concentrates on its two polar strategies: adaptive and developing strategies. We developed nine bipolar scales of personal traits with sublevels by applying the semantic differential technique. In total, there were 145 participants in the study. Participants were grouped according to three criteria: age, gender, and profession. Results. The obtained indices of meaning-building strategies did not coincide in all the differentiated groups, which clearly speaks in favor of acmeological dynamics of the respondents' personal profiles. We stratified the sample according to the mean score of the basic marker of "life meaningfulness, " which enabled us to establish differences in characteristics of actual polar strategies of meaning-building. The respondents who did not fall into either of the two groups are "between the poles. " They often have an underdeveloped meaning-building strategy as a result of poorly formed ways of organization and actualization of personal meanings or the presence of a transitional form of situational conceptual initiations. Conclusion. The personal profiles that were identified represent multifactor models of the personal value and meaning dimensions, which can predict actual meaning-build-Polar Meaning-Building Strategies: Acmeological Characteristics 201 ing strategies using semantic differential scales and indicators ("life meaningfulness" from the Purpose-in-Life test) and help researchers to reduce the number of techniques employed in their studies.

The article analyzes the transformation of the methodological toolkit for teaching humanities and sciences in the Russian Federation. The method of case study, being widely spread in modern higher education research, is used as an example to illustrate the attempts to implement the best practices of foreign educational technology into tertiary academic process in Russia. The authors provide some historical aspects of introducing case studies in modern teaching practice. The article features peculiarities of the Soviet approach to the structure of cases. Content analysis helps to identify similarities and differences in Soviet/post-Soviet approaches to case study construction and brings into focus the problem points which reveal misinterpretation and/or misuse of didactic materials designated as cases. The approach suggested in the article implies presenting the content of a case study as a collection of documents related to a certain topic. The case study "Istanbul in the life and work of the artist Martiros Saryan" demonstrates that a case can have invariable and variable parts to reflect the specificity of the didactic task within the discipline. Such approach is expected to support students' cognitive activity, develop creativity in searching additional sources and missing materials, improve efficiency of students' autonomous work on solving complex problem solution.

Background: This study aimed to discover the association between parameters of event-related potentials (ERPs) and categorization of images of visual scenes, both emotionally-charged and neutral, in carriers of different genotypes of the COMT, HTR2A, BDNF genes. Methods: Electroencephalogram (EEG) and ERPs were recorded at 128 leads, with two ear referents. Images of different visual scenes were presented to the study participants sequentially on a monitor screen. The participants’ task was to examine these images and indicate what emotions (negative, neutral or positive) they elicit. Comparison of event-related potentials was carried out using unpaired Student t-test in EEGLAB toolbox. Results: COMT. A stronger reaction, as reflected in the amplitude of the ERPs, in participants with the recessive homozygous Met/Met genotype was observed on latency around 200 ms to the stimuli, assessed as positive. Carriers of dominant homozygous Val/Val genotype had higher amplitude of 200 ms peak when assessed scene images as either neutral or negative in comparison to other genotypes. Participant with the Val/Met heterozygous genotype had higher amplitude of ERP that Met/Met group on same latency when assessed stimuli as negative. HTR2A. Significant increase in negativity in the parietal-occipital regions revealed in the range of 350-420 ms in participants with the recessive homozygous A/A genotype when choosing any type of assessment, compared to carriers of the heterozygous genotype A/G and the dominant homozygous G/G genotype. BDNF. Participants with Val/Val genotype categorized the visual images more thoroughly, as reflected in greater activation of the parietal-occipital zones and higher amplitude on ERP peak on 190 ms (negative assessment) and 160 ms (neutral assessment) then Val/Met carriers. Conclusions: The COMT, HTR2A, BDNF gene different genotypes are associated with the process of categorizing emotionally charged and neutral visual scenes, and this relationship is reflected in the ERP parameters.

In the training of psychology students in the Faculty of Psychology at the Southern Federal University (Russia, Rostov-on-Don) practice and exposure to the methods of scientific psychology are employed. Student conduct research in the motivation by using hardware that measures a variety of physiological responses. To assess motivation, students were trained to use the following measurements: assessment of social and psychological attitudes; need for affiliation; achievement motivation; cognitive orientation; need for approval and sensation seeking and risky behavior.

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Eye-hand coordination during dart throwing includes both the sensory and motor components, as well as cognitive variables, for example, the direction of the subject’s attention to the target or to the hand kinematic. In the present study, subjects performed dart throws in the eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions with simultaneous recording of the kinematics of the throwing hand. The results showed that the position of the hand in its raising phase was closer to the torso when performing more accurate throws with the eyes-open condition compared to more peripheral throws and throws performed in the eyes-closed condition. Following the dart release, the position of the hand in the eyes-open condition was lower compared to the eyes-closed condition. Additionally, in the eyes-closed condition, raising the hand in its backward moving phase negatively predicts the throwing accuracy. Thus, the early phase of the movement is associated with attention, and the final phase is associated with the visual feedback about the throwing accuracy. Raising the hand in the eyes-closed condition reflects an increase in muscle tension, which leads to a decrease in the accuracy of movement. The results of the study can be applied in sports and in the treatment of hand-eye-coordination disorders.