WAR AS AN OBJECT OF SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCHES: METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The article discusses the methodological problems of social and psychological rehearses that has examinedof modern societies during armed conflicts and other situations of violence. For all the variety of theoreticaland methodological approaches, there is still no consensus in the scientific community regarding the determinationof the essential characteristics that generate various threats to external and internal validity. According tothe above, the main goal of the article is to identify the characteristics that generate various threats to externaland internal validity and to estimate magnitude of the problem. Research methods. Methods of theoreticalanalysis, synthesis, generalization, which allowed to identify some factors which influence «the methodologicalpurity» of the study, cause threats to the procedures of obtaining and processing qualitative empirical data, violate the completeness and adequacy of their interpretation, damage the correctness of generalizationsand extrapolations. Results. The author shows that ethical requirements affect both communication betweenthe researcher and the respondent and the observance of confidentiality, but also affect the completenessof the obtained data, as well as the reliability and validity of the measurements. The politicization of all spheresof life, being specific version of the threat of internal validity , leads to the emergence of a special form of socialdesirability, namely: political desirability. During the war political desirability operates as psychologicaldefence mechanism that can be used for saving life or freedom. The image of society, which is embedded inthe idea of research, turns out to be a determining factor in the legitimacy of generalizations and extrapolations.It happens because the war changes fundamentally both the formal and informal structures of society, setsa new hierarchy of its identities, creates new lines of splits and coalescence of the social fabric of society.The author also researches the relevance of the “pre-war” society image and the hierarchy of its identitiesin relation to the tasks facing the researcher in wartime conditions. Conclusion. The author claims that changesin research process may be related to the increase in the intensity (or other specificity) of social processes.It requires a completely different methodology, as it makes it impossible to comply with all the requirementsand specifics of the social sciences research. And this will be true for both quantitative and qualitative research,since the subject for both will be the dangerous experience of war, which originates from a fragile subjectivityand radically changes the status of bias in the researched plane. This statement is true for both quantitativeand qualitative research where the researcher's attention is focused on the dangerous experience of war.This experience originates from unstable subjectivity and radically changes the status of subjective bias.