E. V. Ryaguzova
The purpose of this paper is to analyze of the personal representation of “I-Strang er ” interaction, and search
its content and role/importance in the psychological risks genesis.
2. Psychological and Communication Risks
In the framework of this article we terminate the area of psychological risks with communication risks, determi-
nistic processes of interaction and communication, interpersonal relations, personal experiences and evaluations.
Communication risks in the course of I-Other interaction are associated with the loss or minimization of contacts,
developing of intercourse barriers, overrunning the roles, uncertainty and complexity of dynamic features of the
situation forecasting. Risks can be due to both communicators’ personalities, their communication competence
level, and set social and psychological attitudes, socially developed expectations and stereotypes. Communica-
tion success and efficiency depend on to what extent the ability of the interaction participants to see in “Other”
an equal partner and simultaneously acknowledge their right to be different is developed. Moreover, concerning
communication risks we intentionally specialize the subject area of our study limiting it to the contacts with
“Other ” like “Stranger ”.
2.1. Analysis of the Construct “Stra nger” and Notion “Strange”
The construct “Stranger” suggests the out-group existence which actualizes the Subject’s anxieties, fears, or ag-
gressive attitudes and opposed/hostile settings. Some of these groups are easily differ in group affiliation formal
matters, and others are categorized with casual or least significant differences. It is important that the less evi-
dent these differences are, the more rigorous criteria of the group differentiation are necessary to make these
differences more prominent and noticeable.
The essential for our analysis fact should be mentioned—the logical connotation of the notion “St rang e” in
many cultures there are such characteristics as dangerous, evil, hostile. “Strange” is positioned as a dual pair to
“one’s own”, typified through the reference to the social category “We” and evaluated/assessed as dangerous,
hostile, risky. Opposition “We-They” is mainly based on stereotypes—social attitudes formed and adopted in the
course of socialization and acculturation. These are stereotypes which enable to recognize “ours” and “strange” by
few decisive criteria, save time and personal resources, emphasize and clarify significant differences between
groups as well as comment on the behavior towards other groups which is often beyond ethical standards work-
ing with the regard to “ours”. Such approach is traditional for psychology but from our point of view it too ex-
tends meaningful and semantic field/area of the construct “Stra nge”, preventing from making clear the concep-
tual framework of finer-grained distinctions. It points up the danger of “Strange”, eliminating the fact that in
certain situation “our s” can be the source of danger and “strange” appears to act as a resource of development.
2.2. The Determination of the Notions
To develop more flexible scheme for differentiation we suggest to draw a distinction between the notions
“Strange” and “A lien”, taking binary pairs “ natural-str ang e”, “close/ours-alien” as a basis, put forward by V.I.
Slobodchikov [1]. Opposition “natural-strange” reflects blood relation, belonging to a particular clan, specifity
of the relations and involvement into the specific group. “Natural” is described through the personal attitudes/
relations—parental, matrimonial—when the personality can ontologize themselves, i.e. to develop their being
with Others and for Others, associate/refer themselves with/to the world, gain the qualitative determinancy in it
and hold one’s own position, i.e. to make a self-determined personality [2]. “Strange ” may not be labeled as
dangerous and threatening but arouse either indifference or interest and curiosity, fixing identity based on dif-
ferences compared to those who this personality appears not to be. In this context the meaning interpretation of
the “strange” depends on the situational context, the intercommunication purpose, territorial localization, status
of the “Strang e”, their command/holding of economical, cultural and social capitals, the rate of threatening to
the in-group and factors/indexes setting different parameters to social distance.
Opposition “clo se/ours—alien” represents spiritual affinity/closeness, similarity of interests, attitudes, shared
meanings, and common invariant values on one of its poles. In this case the example of co-relations is friendly,
intimate relationship based on affection and attraction. There are contrary qualities and characteristics on the
pole “Alien”.
The main differentiating principles of distinction between “insiders/us” and “outsiders/them” are the prin-
