“On the Question of the Psychology of the Actor's Creativity” by L.S. Vygotsky: the Correlation of the Originality of Personal Characteristics and Professional Activity

Abstract

Background. There are very few modern studies on the psychology of the actor and they are mainly based on the study of individual personality traits of actors. The current article discusses L.S. Vygotsky's approach to the psychology of the actor and presents the results of a comprehensive study of the personal characteristics of student actors. Peculiarities of professional activity and the modern socio-cultural situation was taken into account in the interpretation. Objectives. The research is a complex analysis of personal characteristics of actors during the early stage of mastering their professional activity. Study Participants. The study involved second and third year students of the acting faculty of the Institute of Contemporary Art (Moscow); a total of 76 people (39 girls, 37 boys), with an average age of 20.2 years Methods. R.B. Cattell 16 PF personality questionnaire, Eysenck EPI personality questionnaire adapted by A.G. Shmelev, short Big Five portrait questionnaire “B5-10” (authors M.S. Egorova and O.V. Parshikova), short Dark Triad questionnaire (adapted by M.S. Egorova, M.A. Sitnikova, O.V. Parshikova), A.A. Megrabyan empathy questionnaire, and the integral indicator “expert assessment of abilities” were used in the study. Results. As a result of a factor analysis of the respondents' indicators for all the methods used, the following 10 factors describing 69.9% of the total cumulative dispersion were identified: F1 “emotional excitability, plasticity”, F2 “sensitivity to moral constraints”, F3 “empathy”, F4 “openness to experience, trying oneself out”, F5 “publicity”, F6 “frankness, sincerity”, F7 “emotional joining the group”, F8 “insightfulness”, F9 “individualism”, F10 “free-thinking”. The identified factors are interpreted as specific personal formations involved in the realisation of acting. Conclusions. The personal characteristics discovered in the study are considered from the point of view of the content and organisation of the actors' training process. They can act as an alternative to the traditional approach aimed at the development of actors' individual mental functions. Consideration of specific psychological vectors of personal development of student-actors as a basis for the proposed in training etudes and exercises shifts the focus of training on the image of character as a semantic unit of psychotechnical training.

Keywords

• acting giftedness
• big five
• personality traits
• cattell 16 pf questionnaire
• ability assessment
• actor psychology
• acting students
• dark triad
• factor analysis
• empathy