Preface

The second issue of the Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology presents articles on various studies in modern psychology. The issue opens with two articles describing the sociocultural factors of the emergence of psychological phenomenology.

A collective article by a group of St Petersburg researchers O.Yu. Strizhitskaya, M.D. Petrash, D.I.   Golubitskaya and M.G. Kuzmina “Stereotype-based helplessness: Statement of the problem” is devoted to the phenomenon described by the authors based on their research in the field of the psychology of aging. The concept of stereotype-dependent helplessness, proposed by them, denotes the mechanism of the formation of helplessness in older people under the influence of stereotypes about the limited possibilities of old age that are common in everyday consciousness. Despite the increase in life expectancy, advances in medicine  and  social  measures  aimed  at  maintaining  the  level  and  quality  of  life  of  older people, stereotypes about the inevitability of a decrease in activity, the depletion of physical and  intellectual  resources,  the  associated  personality  changes  in  older  ages,  remain  stable  in everyday consciousness, actually acting as a factor in the formation of socially imposed helplessness in the elderly. The practical significance of works in this direction is obvious, while the phenomenon described by the authors makes an undoubted contribution to the development of theoretical concepts in the field of the psychology of aging.