Российский психологический журнал (Jun 2023)
Attitudes Towards the Speed of Social Processes: Development of a New Inventory and Assessment of Its Validity
Abstract
Introduction. The article is devoted to the current but understudied problem in psychology: the speed of social processes. The interdisciplinary approach (theories of P. Virilio, H. Rosa) is used when discussing the issue, substantiating the purpose and hypotheses of the study. The article is aimed to propose the author’s Attitudes towards the Speed of Social Processes inventory, determine its psychometric properties and test its validity. The attitude towards speed is considered as an aspect of subjective time. Methods. The sample size was 521 people. The average age was 31.5 years (min – 21, max – 45), 48.8% of them were men, and 65.6% with higher education; the sample included advanced workers and graduates of vocational educational institutions (work experience 2-3 years). To assess convergent validity, the following were used: Questionnaire of Attitudes towards Technology by G. U. Soldatova, T. A. Nestik, E. I. Rasskazova, E. A. Dorokhova; Personal Flexibility at the Labour Sphere Scale by A. N. Diomin, O. V. Kireeva; scales measuring attitudes towards remote technologies. To assess the criterion validity, the graduates of vocational educational institutions and advancing-age workers were compared (age criterion). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Spearman’s ρ correlation coefficient and the Mann-Whitney U-test were used. Results. The structure of the inventory is set apart and confirmed. It includes two scales: awareness of the social acceleration (the cognitive component) and rejection of the social acceleration (the affective component); their internal and retest reliability is acceptable. The scales correlate with technophilia, technophobia, technopessimism, attitude to remote technologies, and flexibility of the individual at the labour sphere. It has been established that graduates of vocational educational institutions demonstrate a significantly higher level of awareness and emotional acceptance of social acceleration compared to advanced-age workers. Discussion. The correlations and differences expected in theoretical terms are empirically confirmed. The conclusion is made: the Attitudes Towards the Speed of Social Processes inventory is a new compact psychodiagnostic tool that can be used in psychological and interdisciplinary research. Ideas are formulated that aim to expand the list of criteria for the validity of the new inventory.
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