The students were also asked to compare their own possibilities to those of their parents, their coursemates, their peers with no higher education, their classmates, their peers of the opposite sex and those of the same sex (

1
PERCEPTION OF POSSIBILITIES, SUBJECTIVE
WELL-BEING AND FUTURE TIME PERSPECTIVE
Galina Ivanchenko (galina-iv_at_yandex.ru) , Evgeny
Osin (keen-psy_at_mail.ru) Dmitry Leontiev
(dleon_at_smysl.ru) State University
Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Moscow State University
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Human consciousness is more than a simple
cognition of reality. It masters the distinction
not only between the true and the false, but the
distinction between the possible and the
impossible, or between more or less possible, as
well. This specific mechanism of human non-causal
regulation that differs from the regulation based
on the cognition of facticiyy and necessity has
been paid attention by many scholars, from
William James to Heinz Heckhausen and Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi. This idea was particularly
developed in existential philosophy and
psychology (by Jean-Paul Sartre, Ludwig
Binswanger, Viktor Frankl, Mikhail Bakhtin,
Salvatore Maddi and others). Necessity
always entails certain consequences. With
possibility, consequences are never guaranteed.
Possibility can only potentially be made true if
the subject consciously accepts the
responsibility for its carrying out and invests
efforts into its realization. In this situation a
special human mechanism of self-determined
psychological causality is functioning (see
Leontiev, 2007 2009). To be sure, not
all humans are equally apt and disposed to
consider all the optional possibilities for their
own action. Most of us prefer never to leave the
firm ground of necessity, which, though often may
be fatal, is always perfectly unambiguous. This
way people free themselves from the burden of
personal choice and accompanying responsibility.
We hypothesized that ones disposition for
considering possibilities in ones life would
make a difference in ones anticipated
perspectives for future life upon completion of a
professional education.
EMPIRICAL STUDY

• The main aim of the present research was
  to explore the individual differences in the way
  undergraduates face the problem of career choice.
• The sample was comprised of undergraduate
  students in the final year of their 4- to 6-year
  course, drwan from several Russian universities
  in Moscow, Taganrog (south of Russia) and
  Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (far east of Russia).
  The students specialized in economics,
  engineering, teaching, natural sciences,
  sociology and navigation. The total sample
  included 289 participants, 132 of them males and
  157 females, aged between 20 and 31 (median age
  22 years).
• The questionnaires were handed out to
  participants who were instructed to complete them
  whenever convenient. The participants were asked
  to sign the forms using nicknames of their
  choice. All the research materials were
  administered in Russian
• The questionnaire contained demographic
  items used to find out the respondents age and
  place of origin. The students were also asked to
  estimate the number of possibilities they were
  faced with, and to compare their own
  possibilities to those of their parents,
  coursemates, peers with no higher education,
  classmates (at former school), peers of the
  opposite sex and those of the same sex.
• A number of inventories were also administered
• Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, Emmons,
  Larsen, Griffin / Russian version by Leontiev), a
  Russian version of the original 5-item scale.
• Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky, Lepper /
  Russian version by Leontiev), a Russian version
  of the original 4-item scale.
• Purpose in Life test (Crumbaugh Maholick /
  Leontiev), a Russian version of the original
  20-item instrument.
• Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (Zimbardo
  Boyd / Sircova Mitina), a 54-item instrument
  with subscales measuring five different aspects
  of time perspective Past-Negative,
  Past-Positive, Present-Hedonistic,
  Present-Fatalistic and Future.
• Success and Failure Explanatory Style
  Questionnaire (Gordeeva, Osin, Shevyakhova), a
  48-item instrument based on ASQ (Peterson et al.)
  measuring three parameters of optimistic
  attributional style (permanence, pervasiveness
  and controllability) across a set of 24 positive
  and negative situations.
• Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer /
  Schwarzer, Jerusalem, Romek), a Russian version
  of the original 10-item instrument.
• Personal Dynamism Scale (Leontiev, Osin,
  Sapronov), an original Russian 20-item instrument
  measuring ones attitude towards change and
  readiness to accept and enact changes in ones
  own life.
• Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance scale
  (McLain / Lukovitskaya Osin), a Russian version
  of the original 22-item scale, with five
  subscales Attitude to Novelty, Attitude to
  Complex Problems, Attitude to Ambiguous
  Situations, Ambiguity Preference (a positive
  component) and Ambiguity Avoidance (a negative
  component).

The students were also asked to compare
their own possibilities to those of their
parents, their coursemates, their peers with no
higher education, their classmates, their peers
of the opposite sex and those of the same sex
(How would you estimate the possibilities
opening before yourself to those of, with a
5-point response scale a lot more, more,
nearly equal, less, a lot less).
Correlational analysis was performed using
Spearman correlation coefficient, as it is more
suitable to the ordinal scale and the non-normal
distributions of some of the items mentioned.
Table 1. Spearman correlations
between the perception of possibilities and
psychometric scales (N271). Gender
differences in the perception of possibilities
were examined using t-test. Women were likely to
see fewer possibilities than men (t(284)2.02)
and to estimate their own possibilities more
modestly, compared to their coursemates
(t(282)2.46) and their peers of the opposite
sex (t(282)5.33), which is indicative of some
degree of gender inequality in Russia. Students
originating from small towns were also likely to
estimate their possibilities compared to those of
their coursemates more modestly than students
from large cities (t(282)2.93).
Scale Number ofpossibilitiesfaced with Own possibilities compared to Own possibilities compared to Own possibilities compared to Own possibilities compared to
Scale Number ofpossibilitiesfaced with parents course-mates peers, nohighereducation class-mates
Personal Dynamism .28 .17 .20 .18 .21
Satisfaction with Life .21 .01 .11 .14 .20
Subjective Happiness .30 .10 .21 .22 .33
Purpose in Life .26 .16 .28 .15 .23
Past-Negative -.15 -.02 -.10 -.14 -.15
Present-Fatalistic -.20 -.11 -.28 -.07 -.15
Optimism, Successes .19 .06 .19 .16 .17
Self-Efficacy .24 .13 .22 .18 .17
Tolerance for Ambiguity .24 .22 .28 .14 .14
RESULTS
The students answered a question whether
they had encountered a conflict of several
attractive career choice options. Two answer
options were given, yes (N101) and no (N129).
Those students who admitted having a conflict of
attractive options, exhibited higher happiness
(F(1,228)5.22), purpose in life
(F(1,228)7.43), as well as higher ambiguity
preference (F(1,228)5.80), a more positive
attitude towards complex problems
(F(1,228)7.29), as well as ambiguity tolerance
(F(1,228)5.87). Another item tapped
into the number of possibilities students were
confronted with. Four response options were given
(the corresponding number of participants, is
given in parentheses) almost none (N16), a
few (N162), about ten (N22), a multitude
(N86). Despite the strongly differing group
sizes, a one-way ANOVA was performed, as the
homogeneity of variances assumption was not
violated. Significant effects of this
perception of possibilities variable (see Fig. 1)
were found on Personal Dynamism
(F(3,228)10.98), Satisfaction with Life
(F(3,228)8.02), Subjective Happiness
(F(3,228)8.11), Purpose in Life
(F(3,228)11.12), ZTPI Past-Negative
(F(3,228)4.21), Past-Positive
(F(3,228)3.60), Present-Fatalistic
(F(3,228)4.43), Optimistic Attribution of
Successes (F(3,228)3.53), Generalized
Self-Efficacy (F(3,228)3.96), Preference for
Ambiguity (F(3,228)5.80), Positive Attitude
towards Complex Problems (F(3,228)7.13), as
well as general ambiguity tolerance
(F(3,228)5.86).
CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that individuals who
are more open towards different options and are
more able to bear the situation of conflict of
equally attractive possibilities, benefit in the
end in terms of well-being. The perception of
possibilities is an important correlate of
psychological well-being. People who report
seeing more possibilities are happier and more
satisfied with life, they feel more purpose in
life and experience higher self-efficacy they
are also more optimistic in attributing their
successes and hold a less fatalistic attitude
towards life. This may result from these
individuals capacity for a more flexible choice
based on a larger number of options, and their
higher tolerance for ambiguity might make them
immune to the paradox of choice.