Association of Personal Identity and Time Perspective in Patients with Alcohol Dependence: Cross-Cultural Research

• Main Authors: Pavel D. Ignatev, Anna V. Trusova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2019-12-01
• Series: RUDN Journal of Psychology and Pedagogics
• Subjects: personal identity; self-image; time perspective; alcohol dependence; cross-cultural research; Arctic region
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/psychology-pedagogics/article/viewFile/21370/17066

The article presents the results of an original cross-cultural study of the identity and time perspective in alcohol-addicted patients. Based on the materials of the two examined patient groups from the Central (N = 79) and Arctic regions (N = 66) of Russia, using a set of the following psychodiagnostic methods - test of 20 statements by M. Kuhn, T. McPartland, Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI), a semantic time differential and the questionnaire of motivation for alcohol consumption by V.Yu. Zavyalov (MAC) - the regional differences in the identity matrix and temporal orientations were found and described. According to the results of a clinical and psychological research, it was found that for alcohol-addicted patients in general the most significant is a reflexive identity focusing on “negative past”, while considering the past and future in the categories of “activity”, “affective sentiment”, “magnitude”. The leading alcohol use motives are hedonistic, ataractic, and activation behavior. At the same time, the communicative identity, “perceptibility” of the entire psychological time, as well as pseudocultural motive causing alcohol abuse are significantly present in the identity matrix of the patients from Saint Petersburg. In the group of patients from Yakutsk, there is a significant orientation toward a “fatalistic present”, with the “structurization” of the past, present, and future. The intergroup correlations between the various aspects of personal identity and time perspective, as well as the hierarchy of motives in patients with alcoholism in a socio-cultural context are shown. The correlation patterns between the identification characteristics and time perspective have significant differences in the two groups studied. The data obtained reflect the social specifics of the central regions, as well as the cultural characteristics of the northern nationalities with their inherent desire to avoid uncertainty. From these data, it can be concluded that the socio-psychological factors in the etiopathogenesis of alcohol dependence are significant.