Psychological Regulation of Students’ Choice for Response in the Digital Environment under Psychological Pressure

Background. Psychological pressure (PP) in the digital environment is one of the possible ways of conflict resolution in online communication, which refers to antisocial online activities. The content of cognitive and personal components of the human psyche, being included in the regulation of decision-making in online conflict situations, can influence the choice of the ‘digital interlocutor’ of the direction of communicative response, facilitating or hindering effective online communication. Objective. The goal is to explore psychological regulation of students’ choice of answer in PP situations in a digital environment, in particular, its components in their cognitive and emotional spheres. Study Participants. 40 students (M = 21; SD = 1.3; 92.5% women) divided into two equal groups: control and experimental. Methods. 1) Author’s programme for the development of cognitive and communicative skills; 2) communication skills test by L. Michelson (adapted by Y.Z. Gilbukh); 3) “Chat-bot diagnostics of communicative skills of resistance to psychological pressure” (Pogozhina, Rekun, 2023); 4) sentiment-analysis of the tone of online responses; 5) Izard’s Differential Emotions Scale (adapted by A.B. Leonova). Results. After the formation of knowledge about the content of the cognitive and communicative actions in the experimental group, the level of development of students’ communicative skills increased significantly, the orientation of the choice of communicative responses in psychological pressure situations changed from neutral to constructive, students’ online statements acquired a positive colouring (tone). Comparison of situational emotional state and intensity of emotions shown did not reveal significant differences in communicative responses before and after the training. Conclusions. The knowledge about cognitive and communicative actions, set by the cultural and social environment and learnt in controlled learning, acts as an external cause of change in the content of the cognitive component in the system of regulation of students’ choice of communicative response to PP in the digital environment and affects the change in their decisions in the direction of meaningful responses and positive tone in online statements. Students’ situational emotional experiences do not affect the direction of the chosen communicative actions.