www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

Introduction

The familiarity of a modern person to the informational space changes his attitudes, behavior

and life-style. The informational society sets certain guidelines for social relations and contributes to the

emergence of human informational behavior. The situation of uncertainty increases the level of stress in

the modern world and actualizes the coping behavior of a person in the conditions of internet environment.

In the scientic community, there are discussions about the legitimacy of using the term “informational

behavior”. However, discussions on this issue in foreign psychology led to the popularization and even

wider use of this concept.

Informational behavior is manifested in the ability to navigate the informational space, in the skills of

informational technology, in the ability to adequately assess and productively use the information received.

The ability to create, distribute and be responsible for the dissemination of new information products

also lies within the competence of informational behavior. Although the technical side of informational

behavior is signicant, this phenomenon cannot be considered one-sided, psychological aspects are

important components. The lack of research on this aspect of informational behavior actualizes the need

to study and disclose the psychological characteristics of informational behavior and its connection with

the peculiarities of using coping strategies in the Internet.

Worldwide network of the Internet is considered today not only as an information infrastructure, but

as a new virtual space where the urgent needs of both an individual and large groups can be realized. The

openness of the Internet provides great opportunities for a person to realize his needs and motives, and

the interactivity of this information tool allows you to “touch” various events in real time.

1. Literature review

Russian researchers are actively studying informational behavior and its various aspects. The

informational behavior of readers and their information needs were actively studied in the 60-90s by

Psychological Predictors of Students’ Behavior in Internet Under

Information Uncertainty

Irina Abakumova1 , Anastasia Grishina1* , Galina Zvezdina1

1Faculty of Psychology, Pedagogy and Defectology, Don state technical university, Rostov-on-Don, Russia,

e-mail: abakira@mail.com, avgrishina.donstu@gmail.com, galzvezdina@yandex.ru

Abstract: This article is devoted to the study of psychological predictors of students’ informational behavior and

their peculiarities of over-coming stressful situations. The article reveals the relevance of studying this problem, the degree

of study of the topic of informational behavior in various scientic elds. The necessity of studying the motivational basis of

informational behavior is substantiated; the analysis of diagnostic approaches to the study of informational behavior is given.

The article presents the author’s approach to studying the motivational basis of informational behavior and reveals two groups

of informational behavior strategies - normative and risky. The empirical part of the article presents an analysis of the conducted

research for the study of psychological predictors of students’ informational behavior in the Internet. It was revealed that the

normative strategy of informational behavior “Internet as a motivating force” has the largest number of correlations with coping

strategies and indicators of resilience. The results obtained can prove the adaptability of students who actively use the socially

oriented strategy “Internet as a motivating force” and the level of their resilience.

Keywords: informational behavior, informational behavior motivation, normative strategies, risky strategies, psychological

predictors, coping strategies, resilience.

Original scientic paper

Received: November, 15.2022.

Revised: December, 05.2022.

Accepted: December, 09.2022.

UDK:

159.947.5.075-057.875:077.5(470)

316.644-057.875:077.5(470)

10.23947/2334-8496-2022-10-3-17-26

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

*Corresponding author: avgrishina.donstu@gmail.com

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Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

Russian librarians and bibliologists (Yu.A. Schreider, E.S. Bernstein, E.L. Shapiro, T.N. Koltypin). The

pedagogical aspect of the informational behavior of specialists was studied by E. Kulakova. The culture

of informational behavior of Internet users from a philosophical and cultural approach is considered by

Matvienko D. V., the culture of informational behavior as a structural part of informational culture is reected

in the works of Antonov G., Vokhryshev M. G., Gorlov I. I., Degterev A. R., Dulatov A. N., Zinoviev N.B.,

Zubov Yu.S., Kudrin T. A., Lotman Yu. M., Petrov V. M.

Y. Drescher connects informational behavior to the efforts and actions that a person makes to

obtain and master information and create new knowledge (Kulakova, 2000; Matvienko, 2009; Drescher

and Atlanova, 2005).

On the Internet, through his informational behavior, a person is revealed, on the one hand, as a

consumer, and on the other, as a creator and distributor of information. At the same time, the informational

behavior reects the degree of accessibility and comfort of using information resources (Potekhina and

Belyakova, 2001).

The introduction of technical means into the life of a modern person has an impact on the

motivational-need-sphere, “new technical means create new needs, as well as change the way existing

needs are met. In addition to the main function, technical means are beginning to perform others - to

indicate the status of a person, the extent of his acquaintance with technology” (Rasskazova, Emelin and

Thostov, 2015).

In connection with the widespread prevalence of information and communication technologies,

and in particular the Internet, it becomes urgent to study the features of the informational behavior of

active Internet users, the motivational basis of such behavior, predictors of this behavior.

The motives of behavior on the Internet, the study of search queries and their use in the system

of individualized online marketing are the subject of research of large corporations operating online. So,

Google employees proposed a classication of behavioral models of mobile users, which is based on the

motivation for going online:

1) “Repetitive Now”: use mobile apps to search for current, updated and recurring information to

stay in the loop. As a rule, this is viewing the same type of data, but at different dates and periods of time

(weather forecast, discounts, and sports results);

2) “Bored Now”: the behavior of users who just need to “kill time”, something to do, have fun while

they are waiting for something. It is characterized by short-term connection to the network and social

services using a mobile device;

3) “Urgent Now”: this behavior is inherent in users who need access or information, and who are

very limited in time. As a rule, they look for information that is sensitive to the time of day, social or space-

time context (Melnik, 2012).

In considering the types of informational behavior, researchers are studying coping behavior and

resilience as psychological predictors that can help a person maintain psychological well-being and health.

Psychological research concerning motivation and predictors of informational behavior of Internet

users is insufciently represented today. The proposed research is aimed at lling the gap in this kind of

research.

Materials and Methods

The study of informational behavior within the framework of psychology began back in the 70s and

80s of the twentieth century: the emphasis in research gradually shifted from the study of communication

mediated by computers, to the analysis of the characteristics of user activity on the Internet and the

construction of models of Internet behavior.

Diagnostic approaches to this problem have their own characteristic features. The rst (and most

at the moment) proposed diagnostic methods considered behavior on the Internet in the context of the

formation of Internet addiction. So, K. Young, proposing his rst version of the Internet Addiction Test

(IAT) in 1994 uses the concept of “Internet addiction” to indicate the destructive effect of informational

technology on an individual, comparing this addiction to an obsessive state. This technique deliberately

does not differentiate between content that leads to obsessive behavior. The test can be used as a rapid

diagnostic method to determine the presence / absence of addiction. Further study of Internet addiction

and its specics leads K. Young to the conclusion that Internet addiction can be caused by different reasons

and manifest itself in different ways, requiring different types of treatment. The author supplements his IAT

methodology (up to 20 questions) by introducing assessments related to the following areas: avoidance of

reality, obsession, neglect of duties, anticipation, lack of control, social avoidance.

www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

The diagnostic toolkit, developed in the late 90s of the XX in the early 2000s, focuses on the study

of dependent informational behavior, and the presented methods are modications of the scales of K.

Young and S. Chen.

Since the 2000s, the availability of the Internet began to grow, mostly thanks to the revolution in

the development of technical means (the emergence of smartphones and the mobile Internet), and the

emphasis in the diagnosis of informational behavior is gradually shifting from determining the presence of

dependence on the Internet, to the study of online behavior and its inuence on the personal characteristics

of the user, the model of his informational behavior.

In the proposed study, the emphasis is on the study of models of informational behavior using the

author’s technique “Strategies of informational behavior” SIP (Abakumova I. V., Romek V. G., Kolenova A.

S., Grishina A. V., Zvezdina G. P.). The technique allows determining the severity of a particular strategy

of informational behavior, based on the motivational orientation.

Let us consider in more detail the author’s approach to the study of informational behavior. In our

opinion, it is the motivation of users that is the most important link in behavioral models on the Internet.

Understanding motivation as the determination of behavior as a whole, it is necessary to include in the

concept of motivation all types of motives - motives, needs, interests, aspirations, goals, drives, attitudes

and others (Meshkov, 2015). This understanding of motivation as a complex of factors inuencing and

determining behavior has led us to single out ve models of Internet behavior: entertainment, informational,

communicative, productive, and pragmatic. It should be emphasized that within the framework of the

author’s motivational approach to strategies for Internet behavior, the content consumed itself is not as

important as the motive for using this content.

Based on the motives of informational behavior, we divided all the strategies we have identied into

normative and risky ones. Normative strategies include Internet for killing time; Internet for information

search; Internet to tell others about yourself; Internet for shopping; Internet as a motivating force (examples

of others). Risky strategies include Internet as an access to alternative information (oppositional views);

Internet for participation in communities (extremism, destructive tendencies); Internet for spying on

others in social networks; The Internet for the realization of sexual needs; Internet for expressing ideas

(manifestations of nationalism). Each strategy is distinguished by a certain direction of behavior and a

complex of different motives of behavior. This study focuses on the normative strategies of informational

behavior. Let’s describe their features in more detail.

Behavior within the entertainment strategy (Internet for killing time) is aimed at the process of activity

and at oneself, that is, the user himself receives knowledge, emotions, and impressions in the process

of consuming entertainment content. This strategy includes motives associated with using information to

maintain or change their emotional state, as well as in order to simply pass the time and be distracted.

Within the framework of the information strategy (Internet for information search), the user’s behavior

is directed towards the result of the activity and towards himself. This strategy is a classic consumption

of information from the Internet to solve their educational, professional and even everyday tasks. In this

case, the emphasis is on the search result, and not on its process, as in an entertainment strategy.

The communicative strategy of Internet behavior (Internet to tell others about yourself) includes

all forms of behavior that involve interaction with other users (both active and passive). In this case, the

activity is directed at oneself and at others, and the process of communication is more important than its

result.

A productive strategy (Internet as a motivating force) presupposes the creation of new content,

a product of one’s own creativity, which is important to share with others, i.e. in this case, the activity is

aimed at results for others.

Within the framework of the pragmatic strategy of Internet behavior (Internet for shopping), 2 types

of behavior can be distinguished: 1) users who sell something and thus earn; 2) users who buy something,

thereby satisfying their needs.

On the basis of the presented theoretical model, the author’s methodology “Strategies of

informational behavior” (SIP) was developed by Abakumova I. V., Romek V. G., Kolenova A. S., Grishina

A. V., Zvezdina G.P. The technique has passed peer review and is being tested (Abakumova, Zvezdina

and Grishina, 2022).

In order to study coping strategies and resilience, the following techniques were used: “Indicator

of coping strategies” by Amirkhan, 1990 (adaptation by N. A. Sirota and V. M. Yaltonsky) and personal

questionnaire “SACS” L. Hobfall, methodology “Test of vitality” by S. Maddy, in adaptation of Leontiev and

Rasskazova, 2006.

www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

Results

As part of the study of informational behavior, an empirical study was carried out in order to identify

the features of informational behavior of students with different motivational orientations, to identify the

psychological predictors of it and to study their peculiarities of overcoming stressful situations. Psychology

students in the number of 240 people aged 18 to 25, were the respondents of the study. Boys and girls

who study at daytime and evening education took part, of which girls made up more than 80% of the

respondents.

The diagnostic results were processed using the methods of mathematical statistics, in order to

study correlations, the Spearman coefcient was used.

According to the results obtained according to the “Strategies of informational behavior” (SIP)

methodology, this sample of subjects demonstrated the informational behavior strategies presented on

Figure 1.

Analysis of the severity of informational behavior strategies in the sample of students showed that

the priority strategy most often used by students while using the Internet is “the Internet for information

search”. The use of the Internet as the main source of information indicates that students have, rst of all,

educational (business) motivation. The modern Internet space has a large information resource capable

of satisfying various needs.

The second most popular strategy is the “Internet as a motivating force”. This strategy performs, in

a sense, the function of socialization of a person and is aimed, rst of all, at the assimilation of patterns of

behavior and examples of the way of life of the reference and authoritative groups on the network, which

are signicant for Internet users.

The strategy “Internet for killing time” ranks third in the hierarchy of motivational strategies.

Orientation of student youth to meet hedonistic needs and constant presence in the Internet space creates

in them the illusion of being busy and immersed in business.

Figure 1. Representation of informational behavior strategies in the student sample

The pragmatic motivation “Internet for shopping” is expressed within the average values, students

resort to it when necessary. The lowest indicators were scored by the strategy “Internet to tell others about

yourself”.

Thus, the analysis performed allows concluding that the repertoire of motivational strategies used

by students is quite diverse and exible.

At the next stage of the empirical study, psychological predictors were identied that are associated

with strategies of informational behavior. The indicators of resilience and coping strategies were used as

predictors. The study of Spearman’s correlations between informational behavior strategies and coping

strategies showed the presence of both direct and feedback relationships, presented in Table 1.

www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

Table 1

Results of correlation analysis between motivational strategies of informational behavior and

strategies of coping behavior

The informational strategy “Internet for information search” (0.227) has a direct relationship with the

passive strategy of “avoiding problems”, and the strategy “Internet for killing time” (-0.227) has a feedback.

The results obtained may indicate that students, using the Internet as a source of information, avoid

solving the problems that they face, or in this way avoid solving the problems they face.

And according to the results obtained, the more often students use the Internet to “kill” time, the

less often they resort to avoidance strategies.

The analysis for the presence of a connection and tightness of connection between strategies

of informational behavior and coping strategies showed that in the group of strategies for informational

behavior the greatest number of correlations was found between the strategy “Internet as a motivating

force” and different coping strategies.

Direct moderate and weakly expressed relationships were established using the Spearman

coefcient between:

-strategy “Internet as a motivating force” and adaptive strategies for coping behavior as “assertive

actions” (0.206), “entering into social contact” (0.41);

- the strategy “Internet as a motivating force” and non-adaptive strategies of coping behavior, such

as “manipulative actions” (0.27), “impulsive actions” (0.22) and “asocial actions” (0.22);

- the strategy “Internet as a motivating force” and indicators of resilience: “engagement”(0,29), “risk

taking”(0,20), “general level of resilience”(0,25).

Figure 2. Correlation links with the strategy “Internet as a motivating force”

www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

The presence of a connection between assertive actions and the motivating power of the Internet

demonstrates that the positive experience of other people, their achievements and success contribute to

constructive overcoming of life’s difculties, increase condence in oneself and one’s capabilities. It can

be assumed that this strategy of informational behavior teaches a person constructive behavior, based on

the demonstrated images of success.

The results obtained may indicate that when using adaptive strategies, Internet users turn to

internal resources and rely on themselves, or resort to external social resources, such as entering into

social contact.

When using non-adaptive coping strategies, Internet users try to cope with stressful situations

through manipulative actions aimed at achieving the desired result through indirect actions and covertly

using others to their advantage. Also, the list of non-adaptive coping strategies includes “impulsive

actions”. Coping actions with such a strategy lose their purposefulness and become mainly the result

of the release of emotional stress. Asocial actions are also present in the arsenal of coping behavior of

Internet users and are manifested rather in violation of generally accepted norms and rules, in violation

of boundaries.

Also, negative inverse links were revealed between the strategy of informational behavior “Internet

as a motivating force” and the coping strategy “Seeking for social support”. The results obtained may

indicate that due to the frequency of using the Internet as a social reference point and an example to

follow, there is a decrease in the need to turn to others for help in stressful and difcult life situations. It

is possible that active interaction with others on social media devalues real social support. Observing the

lives of others, a sense of belonging and presence, perhaps becomes a resource for overcoming stressful

situations.

The informational strategy “Internet as a motivating force” also has feedback with problemsolving

coping. Active inclusion in the public space, using the possibilities of the Internet to satisfy one’s needs

for belonging to a group, to others, takes a person away from solving problems, creates illusions of well-

being in him. The “problem solving” strategy requires a rational approach to problem solving, the ability to

critically analyze the situation and choose the most adequate solutions. However, students-Internet users,

focused on self-presentation of them in the Internet space, constantly wait for an emotional response

from others and less often resort to an active problem-solving strategy that requires a person to be able

to transform and overcome himself.

Thus, students actively resorting to the informational strategy “Internet as a motivating force”

have in their arsenal different strategies and techniques of coping behavior, both adaptive active and

maladaptive strategies, both direct connections and inverse ones. The results obtained may indicate that,

depending on the life situation, users exibly and dynamically use one or another strategy that helps to

minimize stress and increase a sense of well-being.

The study of correlations between strategies of informational behavior revealed moderate positive

links between the informational strategy “Internet as a motivating force” and other socially oriented

strategies - “Internet to tell others about yourself” (0.502) and “Internet for spying on others on social

networks” (0.452). Students actively use the Internet as a platform for their self-presentation, and as a

resource for obtaining information about others, the peculiarities of their lives, successes and failures. The

possibility of making social comparisons on the Internet may help in the formation of one’s own identity.

Figure 3. Correlation matrix of relationships between motivational strategies of informational

behavior and strategies of coping behavior

www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

Also, correlations were revealed between the strategy of informational behavior “the Internet as a

motivating force” and indicators of resilience, such as “involvement” (0.29), “ risk acceptance “(0.20), and

a general level of resilience(0.25).

The results obtained may indicate that the socially oriented behavior strategy of student users

of the Internet resource - “Internet as a motivating force” is positively related to involvement, which is

characterized by the respondents’ enthusiasm, the presence of internal motivation for what they are

doing, life satisfaction. The relationship of this strategy with the scale of “risk acceptance” shows that

students in whom this strategy is dominant are characterized by dispositional optimism, tolerance to

uncertainty and optimistic attribution of failures.

The results obtained show that students who actively use the informational strategy “Internet as a

motivating force” have demonstrated a sufcient level of resilience, allowing a person to overcome anxiety

in situations of increased uncertainty and be independent of situational emotional reactions.

Discussions

Research on the problem of informational behavior reects different aspects of this psychological

category. The problem of coping styles in connection to digital consumption became of serious importance

in the period of COVID-19 pandemic and social isolation, when social media and Internet recourses has

become the only source of communication with relatives, colleges and friends.

Our studies in that period showed that increased informational consumption can be considered as

a coping strategy of overcoming the pandemic social isolation for respondents with low hardiness and

tolerance to ambiguity: searching different types of information (in particular the latest news about the

COVID-19 pandemic) helps such people to overcome the ambiguity of the situation, makes their life more

understandable and predictable, thereby giving condence in the future and making today’s interesting.

Stable informational consumption indicates that these respondents are stable and condent in their

interests, in their need for the information necessary to feel safe. Decreased informational consumption

shows that for feeling calm and enjoy the opportunity to spend time on social isolation, these respondents

do not need outside information (Grishina and Abakumova, 2020).

Zhao N. and Zhou G. (2021) studied the risk of addictive social media use (SMU) in COVID-19

pandemic. The results showed that COVID-19 stress was positively associated with tendencies toward

addictive SMU. Path analyses revealed that this relationship was signicantly serially mediated by active

use and social media ow, with SMU time being controlled. Authors’ ndings suggest that individuals who

experience more COVID-19 stress are at increased risk of addictive SMU that may be fostered by active

use and ow experience (Zhao, N. and Zhou, G., 2021).

Wolfers L. N., Festl R., & Utz S. found within-person correlations between nomophobia (“no-mobile-

phone phobia”) and stress at one time-point, but not over time. For the younger age group (18-39 years),

more passive Facebook use than usual was associated with more stress than usual six months later, and

more stress than usual was followed by less passive Facebook use six month later (Wolfers, Festl and

Utz, 2020).

Nimrod G. explored older people’s use of the Internet for coping with stress posed by the COVID-19

pandemic and found signicant positive associations between stress and increase in Internet use for

interpersonal communication and online errands. Linear regression analysis revealed a signicant

negative association between stress and subjective wellbeing, but it was only increased Internet use for

leisure that associated signicantly with enhanced wellbeing (Nimrod G., 2020).

This result can be supplemented by the conclusions made in the work of Gioia, F., Rega, V.,

& Boursier, V., showed that among adolescents it is the problematic use of the Internet that can act

as a coping strategy to compensate for decits in emotional regulation. The lack of social support and

good relations between adolescents and parents negatively affects the ability to emotional self-regulation,

which, in turn, further increases the risk of developing problematic Internet use (Gioia, Rega and Boursier,

2021).

The study of Brailovskaia, Schillack and Margraf, has links with our research, as they investigated

the reasons for social media use (SMU), as well as their relationships with daily stress, depression and

anxiety symptoms, experience of ow during the usage process and tendencies of addictive SMU. Authors

suggest the following users’ reasons to go online: “Search for Information and Inspiration”, “Search for

Social Interaction”, “Beat of Boredom and Pastimes”, “Escape from Negative Emotions”, and “Search for

Positive Emotions”. The empirical study showed that only the category “Escape from Negative Emotions”

positively predicted tendencies of addictive SMU (Brailovskaia, Schillack and Margraf, 2020).

www.ijcrsee.com

Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

A number of other studies analyze personal qualities that determine or inuence the informational

behavior of a person (Shchebetenko S. A., 2013; Gordeeva A. V., 2016; Khasanova and Kotova, 2017;

Rubtsova, Panlova and Smirnova, 2018; Rubtsova, Panlova and Smirnova, 2018; Moore and Craciun,

2021; Pogozhina et al., 2020). Studying digital behavior predictors Shchebetenko S. A. investigated

the relationship between the personality traits of the Big Five and the behavioral patterns of students

in the virtual space. The researcher identied indicators of user activity on the site and studied the

relationship with the personality traits of the Big Five. The author found that extraversion, neuroticism, and

agreeableness are important independent predictors of many behavioral indicators of activity, including

the number of friends, the number of posts on the wall, photos and “likes” under a user photo, etc.

The effects of openness to experience were found to be almost entirely mediated by association with

extraversion. Conscientiousness effects have their own specics, manifesting themselves in relation to

the features of the “avatars” used by users: as conscientiousness indicators increase, they use substitute

avatars less often and more often use their personal portrait photos. In general, user activity increases as

extroversion and neuroticism scores increase, and these effects were found to be independent of each

other (Shchebetenko S. A., 2013).

The relationship between the self-attitude of a teenager and the variability of his self-presentation

in communication mediated by the Internet was studied by A. V. Gordeeva. The author has identied the

following patterns:

1. The content of self-presentation of adolescents in the virtual space becomes more heterogeneous

and unstable when there is no clear sense of identity. Then teenagers try different behaviors in Internet

communication.

2. The variability of a teenager’s self-presentation in Internet communication is not determined only

by situational external causes, but is associated with the content characteristics of the user’s self-attitude

(Gordeeva A. V., 2016).

Marengo, D., et al, aimed to identify the relative prevalence of different patterns of social media

use, and to evaluate potential between-group differences in the distributions of age, gender, education,

and Big Five personality traits. It was found that individuals using at least one social media platform

were generally younger, more often female, and more extraverted than non-users. Small differences

in Conscientiousness and Neuroticism also emerged across groups reporting different combinations of

social media use (Marengo et al., 2020).

Moore, K., & Craciun, G. showed that personality factors explained signicant amounts of variance

in terms of attitude towards Instagram, number of likes, total number of Instagram posts since account

inception, and social media addictive tendencies (Moore and Craciun, 2021).

In this way, the results of russian and foreign studies show that the informational behavior of a

person is largely determined by the personal characteristics of the Internet user and, in certain situations,

can help the person cope with stress, providing more information about the situation and distracting from

actual problems. This coincides with the conclusions we made at different stages of the study.

Conclusions

Based on the conducted empirical research, the following conclusions can be drawn:

- it was revealed that the dominant motives for going online for students are motives of communication,

cognitive and entertainment motives;

- it was found that the predominant motivational strategies of informational behavior in the student

sample are strategies - “the Internet for information search” and “the Internet as a motivating force”;

- it was found that coping strategies and indicators of vitality are psychological predictors of

informational behavior;

- the greatest number of correlations between indicators of resilience and strategies of coping

behavior was revealed with the motivational strategy of informational behavior “the Internet as a motivating

force”;

- the motivational strategy “the Internet as a motivating force” has a positive relationship with

indicators of resilience - with inclusion and acceptance of risk, which may indicate that such students are

able to withstand life failures in a situation of uncertainty;

- the variety and wide repertoire of coping strategies associated with the informational strategy

“Internet as a motivating force” allows us to say that students using this strategy demonstrate an adaptive

style of behavior and exibility in coping with stress and life difculties.

The study made it possible to reveal the features of informational behavior strategies in connection

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Abakumova, I., Grishina, A., & Zvezdina, G. (2022). Psychological predictors of students’ behavior in internet under information

uncertainty, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 10(3), 17-26.

with the resilience and coping strategies of respondents in using the Internet and outline the prospects for

further study of this problem.

Acknowledgements

The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 22-78-10107)

(2022) «Transformation of constructive and destructive strategies of informational behavior of youth in the

context of geopolitical risks growth: psychological, psychophysiological and psychogenetic predictors».

Conict of interests

The authors declare no conict of interest.

References

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