Associate professor, Ph.D. D.V. Zhuina¹
Professor, Dr.Sc.Psych., Honoured Worker of Science of the RF V.G. Zazykin²
Ph.D. L.G. Maydokina^1
1 Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute named after M. E. Evsev'ev, Saransk
² Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation

Keywords: acmeology, winner, winning mindset, acmeological object, winning athlete.

Introduction. The planned modernization of the country, propelling of Russia to the level of the most developed countries of the world, taking it up the position of super power in terms of acute confrontation, ceasing to be an "international raw-material appendage" require systematic strenuous and coordinate work in various areas, which in itself is meant to be a breakthrough. The area concerned with integrated economic and technological conversion is deemed the leading one. Its role is definitely huge, however, all these transformations need to be done by people, and whether or not the target far-reaching results will be achieved depends on people's mindset at the moment of these transformations, their mental approach to them. It should be noted that it was univocally and clearly asserted by the founder and president of "Sony Corporation" Akio Morita, recognized as the best manager of the XX century: "...no theory or plan or government policy will make a business a success. That can only be done by people. That is why we need to give them special priority" [5]. His career and achievements clearly demonstrate the efficiency of this approach and control strategy. It should be emphasized that earlier it was I.V. Stalin who commented on this even more precisely and figuratively: "Cadres are a key to everything".

Hence, the following concept is deemed fundamental: modernization and sweeping progressive reforms in the country are possible in case they are done by people who are not only competent and determined to achieve the set goals and personal well-being, but also possess a different mental make-up. Those are supposed to be game-changers, people with winning mindset, focused only on victory in their activity [4].

 In the history of our country there were periods of trial, when all difficulties were overcome owing to winners and winning mindset developed in other people. People with winning mindset made history, helped their county out of the tightest situations. Among those who possessed the winning mindset were Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, A.V. Suvorov, F.F. Ushakov, G.K. Zhukov, S.P. Korolev, I.V. Kurchatov, A.N. Tupolev, Yu.B. Hariton Yu and others [5, 6].

Much attention was given to formation of winning mindset by great Russian general A.V. Suvorov, who himself was a winner model. Suvorov constantly demonstrated winning mindset during military service in his science of victory [2].

There are certainly such game-changers in our country too, who possess great personal and professional potential and are victory driven. That is why, it is necessary to learn to determine and select people with winning mindset, create conditions for their self-implementation. No less important is the problem of formation of winning mindset in the course of training, especially within military and sports educational institutions [3]. However, for this to be possible, we need to answer precisely to the most important questions: What is winning mindset? What is a winner from the perspective of psychology? How to become a winner?

Currently in psychological science sufficient attention is being paid to research related to the study of psychological characteristics of athletes [1, 7, 8]. However, the problem of winning mindset is understudied in science.

To understand what is typical for winning mindset, it is necessary to conduct a psycho-acmeological research of winning mindset. These studies were first carried out on the basis of the theoretical and practical innovation department "Acmeological Center" of Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute. The original precondition of this research was as follows: to determine special aspects of winning mindset, it is necessary to study the psychological characteristics of those who are rightly called winners. These are mainly the Heroes of the Russian Federation, heroes awarded with the Order of Courage, champions. For this purpose, we conducted an empirical study in the form of psycho-acmeological examination of 15 winners and medalists of major international tournaments in track and field athletics and martial arts. These winning athletes have sports titles of "Honored Master of Sport", "Master of Sport of International Grade" and big sports experience of 14 to 25 years, testifying that their sports victories are not a chance circumstance. Winning athletes are indeed acmeological objects, since they have achieved prominent results thanks to reaching the acme of their personal and professional development. Consequently, from the acmeological viewpoint, this sampling is quite representative, as in any sport about 5% of the total number of those involved in this sport are prominent athletes.

The purpose of the research was to study psychological-acmeological characteristics of winning athletes.

Materials and methods. The psycho-acmeological research was carried out using the following diagnostic tools:

- the author's questionnaire "Winning mindset";

- the "Mini-Mult" test (a shortened version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory MMPI);

- the Cattell's 16 Personality Factors test (Form A).

In addition, interviews were conducted in free form, and handwriting analysis of the autograph of winning athletes was done. This toolset is used for a comprehensive analysis of temperament and personality characteristics of acmeological objects. It was important to determine the inherent and "acquired" characteristics of winners, that both had been developed on the high level [9, 10].

Results and discussion. Let us introduce the generalized results of the psycho-acmeological research at the qualitative level.

We would like to emphasize that the examined athletes estimated winner's psychological characteristics quite precisely. In their opinion, a winner is distinguished by personality strength, strength of mind, professionalism, determination, perseverance, purposefulness, diligence, patience and mental stability, courage, ability to go all the way and never give up. We observed "lust for victory" (need for victory, motivation to win), "confidence in oneself and in victory", "constant self-cultivation, self-improvement". The truth is that there exist radical judgments - "win at all costs", "readiness to sacrifice everything for end of purpose". As seen from the mentioned characteristics, most of them are a part of the sub-structure of the inherent characteristics, temperamental attributes and personality orientation. Let us remark here that it is volitional qualities that prevail.

The "Mini-Mult" test has shown that it is hypotonia that predominated in winning athletes, which was expressed in liveliness, in all circumstances, and was characterized by energy, high activity, vitality and cheerfulness. This may be the result of optimistic personality orientation, self-confidence. At the same time, in some cases we observed depression. It was typical for those tired of heavy loads, but very responsible and assiduous people. The use of the Cattell's 16 PF test (Form A) helped obtain significant results. Let us specify them.

Most combat athletes have high Factor G indices (high super-Ego). People like that are distinguished mainly by virile character, conscientiousness, determination, good organization, responsibility, commitment to success, accuracy, business orientation. Factor E (dominance) predominates in nearly a half of them. It should be noted that people like that are distinguished by self-confidence, self-assertion, stubbornness, they can even be aggressive and capricious.

Winning athletes were observed to have high values of Factor G, В and Н, I, М. In other words, they are distinguished by high activity, good organization, insightfulness, response rate, courage, initiative, appetite for risk, compassion, masculinity, responsibility, determination, severity, stiffness, hardness, practicality, inflexibility.

The use of other methods (interview, handwriting analysis of the autograph) enabled us to verify the results obtained. In particular, winning athletes have high self-esteem, determination to accentuate own status, worth and capabilities, dominance, desire to come to the front, introduce oneself to notice.

We have systematized the results obtained during the empirical studies. Their generalization and systematization was done in accordance with the models of psychological structure of personality (by Ya.A. Ponomarev and K.K. Platonov). In a first approximation, this helped develop a generalized psychological-acmeological portrait of a winning athlete. It discloses the content of the personality substructures as follows: inherent characteristics, mental processes, temperament, motivation, experience and orientation.

 Conclusion.  Let us introduce a generalized psychological-acmeological portrait of a winning athlete in the form of a structured qualitative description. It should be emphasized that the given description is true of winners who approved themselves in sports only. In other spheres other psychological characteristics may prevail.

Inherent characteristics

According to the findings, winners are distinguished by the following inherent psychological characteristics:

- personality strength;

- activity;

- specific great capabilities;

- considerable personal potential (primarily, volitional one and potential for development).

Peculiarities of mental processes

Among the perceptual processes in winning athletes, we need to single out the developed functions of attention, imagination, expressed in the "intensity of dreaming", that directs personal and professional development. Among the intellectual characteristics, it is intuition and thinking practicability that prevail. All types of memory are well-developed in winners.

Characterological peculiarities

Winning athletes are distinguished by the following traits:

- strong will;

- courage;

- masculinity;
- proactiveness;
- perseverance, persistence;
- resistance;
- dominance;
- propensity to reasonable risks;
- courage in making and implementing decisions;
- high self-organization;
- self-dependence;
- moderately pronounced accentuation of personality traits (i.e. excessive increase compared with the conventional norm of certain traits) having a positive direction.

Peculiarities of motivation

It is strong achievement motivation that obviously prevails in winners, which is, probably, the result of the inherent or skillfully formed strong need for achievements. Self-realization motivation and motivation for progressive development in the chosen area of activity is quite strong too.

We have also detected a self-motivation ability, that is, the ability to create meaningful motives all by oneself, stimulating high goal-oriented activity, searching for notional personal meanings. It is a manifestation of the so-called "inner dope".

Peculiarities of individual and professional experience

Winning athletes have quite a vast experience which plays a key role in their achievements. Most winning athletes are determined to constantly enrich and increase personal experience. With this aim they use various sources of information, including analysis of experience of other winners. Big experience correlates with high working capacity and inner self-organization.

The characteristics of winners’ experience include catholicity and open-mindedness, as well as development strategy focused on outscoring.

Personality orientation characteristics

Orientation is what sets winners far apart. The most significant characteristics of winning athletes' orientation are:

- high (constantly growing and "extending") personal and professional standards;

- ability to set and complete super-tasks;

- optimism;

- patriotism;

- lust for victory;

- honesty, decency;

- innovativeness;

- focus on self-development and self-improvement;

- high self-esteem.

In addition to the description above, the high level of subjectness and competitiveness must be added.

The proposed description of the general psychological characteristics of winning athletes will help significantly improve qualification and training of athletes to make real winners of them.

We determined the perspectives of further psycho-acmeological studies of winning athletes - objective and methodological space extension, determination of the factor structure of a winner’s personality, identification of correlation relationships.

We have confident expectations that the obtained results will have a widespread practical application.

References

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Corresponding author: akmeozentr@yandex.ru