PSYchology

Virtual psychology is a new direction in psychology that studies the relationship of psychological phenomena and a field of activity in which the interaction of objects is mediated by electronic information carriers. Virtual psychology is based on general psychological methodological principles, uses general psychological methodology and theory. It is built on a well-defined philosophical basis (virtual philosophy), has specific theoretical models (ideal objects), an experimental scheme adequate to the type of theoretical models, and its own sphere of practice (areteya). The basic philosophical idea is the idea of ​​polyonticity, which involves considering the psyche as a set of ontologically heterogeneous, not reducible to each other, realities. Virtual psychology relies on the virtual state of a person during a period of emotional upsurge — at the peak of inspiration, creative upsurge. The subject of virtual psychology is the «human-virtual reality» system (HVR).

History

This scientific direction arose in the eighties of the twentieth century. N. A. Nosova (1952-2002) is considered the founder of virtual psychology. The Institute of Humanitarian Education (IGIMO) has a Center for Virtualistics, there was also a Center for Virtualistics of the Institute of Man of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1991-2004). The research group “Virtualistics” of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2005 continues the work of the Center for Virtualistics of the Institute of Man of the Russian Academy of Sciences [1]. In 2000, the first scientific conference on virtual psychology was held in Russia.

Object of virtual psychology

A lot of people (individuals, social groups) acting as objects and subjects of virtual worlds and cybernetic space.

The subject of virtual psychology

In the «human-virtual reality» system, virtual psychology deals with the following issues:

  • Psychological characteristics of a person in various virtual worlds and cybernetic spaces;
  • Stereotypes and attitudes of people regarding activities in which the interaction of objects is mediated by electronic information carriers;
  • The psychological essence of this field of activity;
  • Education and upbringing mediated by electronic media;
  • Human behavior and society at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, history, sociology, cybernetics and ethology.

The goal of virtual psychology is to increase the effectiveness of the «human-virtual reality» system by means of psychology.

Virtual team

In the world, more and more work tasks are performed by virtual teams. This is a group of such employees who work through the Internet. They rarely meet in person or don’t know each other at all. As practice has shown (based on a study of 55 virtual teams from 15 European and American multinational companies), when forming virtual teams, certain rules must be observed in order to ensure their effectiveness:

  1. It is necessary to help team members get to know each other better through social networks;
  2. Virtual teams will be more productive if several members are familiar with each other;
  3. At least 15% of the team must consist of «communicators». «Communicators» are people who have many connections with helpful people outside the team. However, too many communicators can harm the team.
  4. It is necessary to constantly monitor the presence of communicators in the team and promote the expansion of personal connections of team members outside of it.
  5. The work on the project should be divided into a number of stages so that the completion of one of them is not overly dependent on the degree of completion of the other;
  6. You need to create a website where team members can exchange ideas and inspire each other;
  7. It is useful to encourage communication among team members, but not to force mandatory gatherings;
  8. Team tasks should be interesting and stimulating;
  9. The work must be meaningful for both the team and the company as a whole;
  10. The team should have as many volunteers as possible.

The specifics of the work of virtual commands are described in full in the book by Leigh Thompson [4].

The psychological aspects of the activity of virtual teams are the subject of the psychology of virtual labor.

The Structure of Virtual Psychology

Block technically mediated

Reflection block

Block of virtual ergonomics

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