Psychological rationality

There are many definitions of this concept. One of the first scientists to define the term psychological rationality was Appelbaum S.A. (1973) ^[1] . He designated PR as the person’s ability to see the connection between his thoughts, feelings and actions, emphasizing the importance of clarifying the patient’s thoughts and feelings and how they manifest themselves in behavior.

In the literature, there are other interpretations of this term, designating PR as a predisposition to the reflection of one's and others' thoughts and feelings ^[2] . Integrating is the definition that unites the previous ones and explains PR as a person’s interest in the reflection of mental processes, as their significance for behavior and as an orientation towards the affective and intellectual spheres ^[3] .

The level of psychological rationality is positively correlated with psychological strength. Studies of PR showed that personality traits such as extraversion and openness to experience belonging to the Big Five positively correlate with PR, such a trait as neuroticism , in turn, correlates negatively with PR ^[4] . There are studies that link this indicator with tolerance to uncertainty, empathy, as well as a good level of adaptation ^[5] . Low levels of PR are also associated with alexithymia . In order to adequately build a picture of oneself and one's self, a person must have the dialogical nature of self-awareness and be active in the process of building self-relation and self-understanding.

The characteristic of psychological rationality is closely related to the indicator of emotional intelligence, which Mayer, Panther and Caruso, authors of one of the models of EI, wrote in their work ^[6] . Their studies reflected a positive correlation of the scale of understanding of other people and the general factor of personality intelligence with the scales of the PR questionnaire ^[7]

There are gender differences in the manifestation of this characteristic. Studies carried out during the validation of the American questionnaire of psychological rationality by Shill M. A. showed that women show a higher level of PR and rate themselves higher than men, on a scale as an interest in the meaning and motivation of their own and those around them, but lower on the scale of benefits from discussion of their own problems with others ^[8] . When adapting the questionnaire to the Russian language, similar studies were carried out, which confirmed that men are more likely to discuss their problems with others, and women are more interested in the field of subjective experiences ^[9] .

Much work to expand the concept of psychological rationality was carried out in the UK by the English scientist Martin Seager (2006) ^[10] , who subsequently developed the concept of psychological safety. He established that the health and success of the family, enterprises, institutions, and society as a whole largely depend on the level of psychological rationality. For example, a nurse in a psychiatric hospital with a high level of PR can be psychologically tuned and motivated to work with a patient who also has a certain level of PR, but their interaction may be hindered by the “psychological blindness” of the patient care system, which leaves the nurse no time, no thoughts, no feedback, which prevents such an interaction. It is well known that workers in psychiatric clinics often have to try to “turn off” emotions in order to simply be able to adapt to working conditions and the requirements. As soon as they succeed, patients run the risk of experiencing a peculiar emotional neglect, which, combined with transfer factors, leads to a variety of incidents in the clinics. Patients who feel rejected begin to act defiantly in order to attract attention or in response to ignoring.

It is logical to assume that the higher the PR level of a person, the better the results of psychotherapy. This is due to the fact that clients are ready for a high level of uncertainty arising in the therapeutic process, open to the perception of many perspectives ^{[11] [12]} . It is assumed that people who are tuned to the awareness of their inner life should be tolerant of the uncertainty associated with the course of internal processes. The patient’s openness of uncertain information also contributes to the integration of experience (both in therapy and in everyday life), leading to insights necessary for positive personality changes.

Currently, to measure the level of psychological rationality, the Psychological Intelligence Scale, created by Conte and co-authors in 1990 ^[7] , is used and tested on a sample of 397 students ^[8] . As a result of factorization, the following five subscales were distinguished:

• Belief in favor of discussing one’s own problems with other people;
• Subjective accessibility of the sphere of feelings;
• The desire to discuss their problems with others;
• Interest in interpreting the motivation of one’s own behavior and the behavior of others;
• Openness to new experience (changes).

The questionnaire was adapted into Russian in 2014 at the Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Novikova M.A., Kornilova T.V. ). Its scales differ slightly from the scales of the original questionnaire:

• Interest in the field of subjective experiences;
• The subjective accessibility of the sphere of experience for understanding and analysis;
• The benefits of discussing your own experiences with other people;
• The desire and willingness to discuss their problems with others;
• Openness to change, even if it carries a risk.

The questionnaire includes 45 points, in each of which the subject must evaluate the degree of his agreement with the statement about himself, choosing one of four possible answers: completely disagree, disagree, agree, completely agree.

• Piper, WB; McCallum, M (1997). Psychological mindedness: a contemporary understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 77-104. ISBN 0-8058-1722-0 .
• Novikova M.A., Kornilova T.V. (2014) “Psychological rationality” in the structure of intellectual and personal potential (adaptation of the questionnaire) ”. Psychological Journal. Volume 35, No. 1, p. 95-110