Personality Traits and Psychological Self-Regulation of Students Online and Offline: to the Question of “Digital” Aspect of Socialization

Internet activities, especially in adolescents and young people, are related to higher emotions and the wider social roles, comparing to offline. The aim of the study was to reveal manifestations of personality traits and psychological self-regulation online comparing to offline, as well as their relationship with user activity, relationship to Internet and subjective well-being. 260 students filled the Brief Personality Scale, the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs Scale, and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, first with original instruction, and then with instruction to assess whether these features are more likely to manifest online or offline. Additional measures included scales of assessment of subjective well-being, user and combined activity, digital competence, attitude to technology, attitude to the digitalization of education. The suggested modifications of the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs Scale, and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire had sufficient reliability-consistency, which allows use them in research aimed at comparing psychological manifestations online and offline. On the Internet, compared to offline, students were less satisfied with relatedness; they are less self-blaming, accepting, ruminating, focusing on planning, had lower scores on positive reappraisal, perspective taking, and catastrophizing. Higher levels of autonomy, acceptance, rumination, positive refocusing, and perspective taking were related to higher offline rather than online manifestations of these traits. User activity was associated with greater online autonomy, the combined (online and offline) activity — with online competence, and with greater excitability of the digitalization of education with online competence and positive reappraisal. Differences in the manifestations of psychological self-regulation online and offline were not related to subjective well-being. It can be assumed that students’ assessment of their possibilities of psychological self-regulation online, comparing to offline, describes their relationship to their Internet activities and self-image but not general relationship to technologies and digital competence.

Belinskaya, E. P. (2013). Informational socialization of adolescents: social networks experience and psychological well-being. Psikhologicheskie issledovaniia: elektronnyi nauchnyi zhurnal, 6 (30), 5. https://doi.org/10.54359/ps.v6i30.679 (In Russian)

Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.

Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi S., Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97, 143–156.

Danby, S. J., Fleer, M., Davidson, C., Hatzigianni, M. (2018). Digital childhood. Amsterdam, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6484-5

Garnefski, N., Kraaij, V., Spinhoven, P. (2002). Manual for the use of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Leiderdorf, DATEK2. 

Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., Swann, W. B. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528. https://doi.org10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1

Karabanova, O. A. (2020). Risks of information socialization as a manifestation crisis of the modern childhood. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Ser. 14. Psikhologiia, 3, 4–22. https://doi.org/10.11621/vsp.2020.03.01 (In Russian)

Marcinkovskaya, T. D. (2010). Information space as a socialization factor of modern teenagers. Mir psikhologii, 3, 90–102. (In Russian)

Osin, E. N., Leont’ev, D. A. (2020). Brief Russian-language instruments to measure subjective well-being: psychometric properties and comparative analysis. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: ekonomicheskiei social’nye peremeny, 1, 117–142. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2020.1.06 (In Russian)

Osin, E. N., Suchkov, D. D., Gordeeva, T. O., Ivanova, T. Yu. (2015). Basic psychological need satisfaction as a source of work motivation and subjective well-being in Russian employees. Psikhologiia. Zhurnal Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki, 12 (4), 103–121. https://doi.org/10.17323/1813-8918-2015-4-103-121 (In Russian)

Polivanova, K. N. (2016). Childhood in a changing world. Sovremennaia zarubezhnaia psikhologiia, 5 (2),5–10. https://doi.org/10.17759/jmfp.2016050201 (In Russian)

Rasskazova, E. I., Lebedeva, A. A. (2020). Screening Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE): Validation of the Russian version. Psikhologiia. Zhurnal Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki, 17 (2), 250–263. https://doi.org/10.17323/1813-8918-2020-2-250-263 (In Russian)

Rasskazova, E. I., Leonova, A. B., Pluzhnikov, I. V. (2011). Development of the Russian version of the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire. Vestnik psikhologii. Ser. 14. Psikhologia,  4, 161–179. (In Russian)

Rasskazova, E. I., Soldatova, G. V. (2022). Psychological and user activity predictors of attitude toward learning in students during digitalization of education in pandemic. Psikhologiia. Zhurnal Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki, 19 (1), 26–44. https://doi.org/10.17323/1813-8918-2022-1-26-44 (In Russian)

Sheldon, K., Hilpert, J. C. (2012). The Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN) scale: An alternative domain general measure of need satisfaction. Motivation and Emotion, 36 (4), 439–451. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9279-4

Soldatova, G. U., Voiskounsky, A. E. (2021). Socio-Cognitive concept of digital socialization: А new ecosystem and Social Evolution of the Mind. Psikhologiia. Zhurnal Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki, 18 (3), 431–450. https://doi.org/10.17323/1813-8918-2021-3-431-450 (In Russian)

Soldatova, G. U., Nestik, T. A., Rasskazova, E. I., Dorohov, E. A. (2021б). Psychodiagnostics of technophobia and technophilia: Development and testing a Questionnaire of Attitudes towards technology for adolescents and parents. Sotsial’naia psikhologiia i obshchestvo, 12 (4), 170–188. https://doi.org/10.17759/sps.2021120410 (In Russian)

Soldatova, G. V., Rasskazova, E. I. (2018). Brief and screening versions of the Digital Competence Index: verification and application possibilities. Natsional’nyi psikhologicheskii zhurnal, 3 (31), 47–56. https://doi.org/10.11621/npj.2018.0205 (In Russian)

Soldatova, G. V., Rasskazova, E. I. (2019). Following communication rules online and offline: intergenerational analysis. Psikhologicheskii zhurnal, 40, 4, 73–84. (In Russian)

Soldatova, G. V., Rasskazova, E. I., Nestik, Т. А. (2017). Russian Digital Generation: Competence and Security. Moscow, Smysl Publ. (In Russian)

Soldatova, G., Rasskazova, E., Chigarkova, S. (2021a). Flaming and trolling as a type of cyberaggression: the role structure and features of digital sociality. Psikhologicheskii zhurnal, 42 (3), 87–96. https://doi.org/10.31857/S020595920015229-7 (In Russian)

Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain Drain: the mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2 (2), 140–154. https://doi.org/10.1086/691462