Dissertation FAQ

About how volunteers in wartime stay psychologically resilient — and how that resilience can be taught. The work combines three layers: a theoretical model of resilience, an empirical study of 127 volunteers across dozens of psychological indicators, and an author's programme whose effectiveness has been verified experimentally.

Three things. First — the author's diagnostic method for the volunteer's altruistic orientation (validated, test-retest reliability r = 0.78). Second — a four-level conceptual model of resilience formation (personal → motivational → regulatory → behavioural). Third — the empirically demonstrated leading role of the seeking-social-support coping among all predictors of volunteer resilience.

First and foremost — psychologists working with volunteers or preparing to do so. Less obviously but importantly: coordinators of volunteer organisations (to understand the risks and resources of their team), HR officers and leaders of humanitarian missions, researchers of burnout and PTSD, and instructors of organisational-psychology courses.

Stress tolerance is the capacity not to break in the moment. Mental health is the capacity to function. Resilience is broader: a dynamic mechanism of recovery and growth after blows. Under systematic stress (which war is, par excellence) one-off stress tolerance is not enough — what is needed is a recurring cycle of "blow → processing → readiness for the next one." That is resilience.

Soldiers and medics have an institutional structure — chain of command, rotation, mandatory psychological support, career incentives. The volunteer typically has none of this: they come on their own, work without salary or protection, and leave the same way. This creates a unique psychological situation — without buffers, with persistent moral distress and no formal right to fatigue. The volunteer's resilience is therefore a phenomenon of a special kind that does not reduce to what is known about other helping professions.

Always useful, but war is prolonged, uncontrollable, collective stress. It differs from, say, the loss of a loved one or a divorce — there the event is bounded in time and can be "worked through." In war the stressor does not end; you can neither outlive it, escape it, nor fix it. This is a specific context in which the standard models of stress and coping only partly work. The author's work explores precisely how basic psychological mechanisms adapt to these unusual conditions.

Six in all. Theoretical: 1) analyse resilience as a resource for coping with the negative effects of volunteering; 2) systematise the psychological factors of its formation. Empirical: 3) identify the level of resilience among volunteers of varying tenure and age; 4) determine its correlates among personality, motivational and regulatory characteristics; 5) identify the psychological predictors. Applied: 6) develop and test a programme of resilience formation.

Volunteering is usually defined by external features — being voluntary, unpaid, useful to society. Barinov adds a psychological dimension: volunteering appears not only as a form of activity but as a psychological process of mobilising, regulating and restoring personal resources. In this frame it is not just "helping others" but a space of psychological adaptation, self-determination and resilience formation.

Barinov critically reframes the classical Clary–Snyder model of "six functions of volunteering" (values, understanding, career, social, protective, enhancement). He adds that wartime activates special motives — searching for meaning amid chaos, moral obligation, protest against helplessness. The most stable motivational base is internalised humanistic values (rather than external approval or career bonuses).

Yes and no. The author's review shows a dual nature. Positive effects: formation of a prosocial identity, post-traumatic growth, a sense of agency, social integration, life meaningfulness. Negative effects: secondary traumatisation, moral distress, burnout, somatisation, depressive states. Which prevails depends precisely on resilience and psychological preparation. Volunteering without support under harsh conditions is a statistically significant risk.

The typical trajectory in the author's review: 1) Enthusiasm — "I can do anything," high engagement. 2) Stagnation — reality proves harder; first disappointments. 3) Frustration — anger, cynicism, "the system is broken." 4) Apathy — numbing, distancing, formalism. 5) Exit — leaving the role, often with post-traumatic symptoms. Resilience does not prevent the blow but allows movement back to stage 1 rather than deeper.

"An integrative capacity of the person to maintain effective functioning, emotional balance and meaning-stability under conditions of prolonged volunteer activity associated with crisis and traumatic events." The key words are integrative (a system rather than a single trait), maintain (a dynamic process rather than a static characteristic), prolonged (chronic load, not a one-off stressor) and meaning-stability (preserving the "why I do this," not only the "how to endure").

Because in wartime no single strong trait is enough. One can have iron stress tolerance and break on a moral dilemma. One can be communicative yet lack existential meaning. One can believe in the cause and yet be unable to regulate emotions. Only a system of mutually supporting resources yields stable resilience. That is why Barinov measures it methodologically both as a disposition (CD-RISC-10) and as a process with 8 components (Grishyn's method).

127 volunteers (49 women, 78 men) aged 18–60, divided into groups by tenure — newcomers (under 1 year, n=44), experienced (1–4 years, n=55), veterans (over 4 years, n=28), age (early / middle / late adulthood) and gender. Data were collected in 2022–2025, mostly in person with signed informed consent. The types of volunteering varied: evacuation, humanitarian aid, psychological support, medical volunteering and administrative support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Because of the same "integrative" understanding of resilience. It cannot be measured with one tool: it covers personality, motivational, coping, existential and affective components. Hence the choice: CD-RISC-10 (integrative score) + Hrishyn (8 components) + O. S. Shtepa Personal Maturity Inventory (10 scales) + Längle–Orgler Existence Scale + Längle's Test of Existential Motivations + Eysenck's EPI (neuroticism) + Spielberger–Khanin (anxiety) + Lazarus–Folkman WCQ (coping) + the author's altruistic-orientation methodology. Each closes its own layer.

Yes, and it is statistically significant. Veterans show substantially higher resilience scores across all scales, particularly stress tolerance, self-determination and constructive coping. Two explanations apply: 1) a selection effect — less resilient volunteers leave the activity earlier, so "veterans" are largely the resilient ones; 2) a developmental effect — the practice of volunteering itself forms resilience. Barinov's data suggest both mechanisms operate.

Yes, but a paradoxical one. Female volunteers on average show lower resilience scores on most scales. The author is cautious about interpretation: men may under-report their difficulties owing to social norms ("the strong stay silent"), while women report openly. Moreover, women with long tenure show a strong rise in constructive coping — a different strategy that may be no less effective than men's "challenge orientation."

The highest resilience is observed in middle adulthood (35–60 years). Neither youth nor late adulthood, as one might guess. Why? Because in middle age ontogenetic gains (experience, values, regulatory skills) have been integrated while energetic resources are not yet exhausted. Youth has energy but lacks experience; late adulthood has experience but is energy-limited. Notably, long tenure in volunteering at a young age partly compensates for the lack of ontogenetic maturity.

Strong and many-sided. Each of the 10 indicators of personal maturity correlates with resilience. Strongest: self-acceptance (link to stress tolerance), life philosophy (link to challenge orientation) and synergy (link to constructive coping). Key conclusion: low personal maturity is a critical factor in reduced resilience. When a person does not accept themselves and lacks a mature philosophy of life, every external blow lands on a "bare" psyche.

In Längle's conception, existentiality is the capacity for authentic engagement with the world through four fundamental motivations (support, value, authenticity, meaning). Barinov found that all four positively correlate with resilience. The strongest link is with the motivation of "relatedness, time and closeness" (the second fundamental). This emphasises that resilience is not only cognitive or behavioural strength but also the capacity to feel that life is worth living, that it holds meaning and close relationships.

It sounds paradoxical — what could be more depleting than giving oneself to others? Yet the data show: mature altruistic orientation positively correlates with resilience. The clue is that mature altruism includes healthy boundaries and delivers meaning. It is not "self-sacrificing burnout" but a deliberate choice to help that nourishes rather than depletes. Empirically — by the author's method — volunteers with high altruistic orientation are significantly more resilient.

The most direct link of all. High emotional stability (i.e. low neuroticism) correlates with every resilience indicator. No surprise — someone with low emotional lability reacts less to stressors. But importantly: emotional stability is not entirely innate. It develops through experience of affect regulation, reflection and maturity of the self. That is why the formation programme works with this scale — not as a trait but as a skill.

Cluster analysis produced four groups: 1) Dominance of avoidance coping (low resilience). 2) Dominance of confrontational coping (low). 3) Distancing of responsibility (moderate — a protective coping). 4) Dominance of constructive coping (highest). An important finding: "distancing of responsibility" paradoxically yields better resilience than avoidance or confrontation — it removes psychological load in unsolvable situations.

All resilience indicators correlate negatively with state and trait anxiety (Spielberger–Khanin). The higher the anxiety, the lower the resilience — a simple and unambiguous relation. Yet anxiety is not an "enemy" in itself. Moderate anxiety mobilises. The problem is the combination of high anxiety with low personal maturity: anxiety then fails to translate into action and instead blocks functioning.

A correlation shows that two variables are linked. A predictor is a variable that predicts another while all other influences are controlled. In multiple regression we ask: "when every other factor is simultaneously taken into account, what remains substantively related to resilience?" The variables whose coefficients remain statistically significant are the predictors. This is a stricter conclusion: not "they co-occur" but "this actually works, not just an accompanying phenomenon."

The strongest positive predictor is seeking-social-support coping. This is the most principled empirical finding of the dissertation. Not personal maturity, not existentiality, not self-control — but precisely the willingness and ability to ask others for help. Barinov interprets this as follows: volunteering is collective by nature, so resistance to its stresses must be socially anchored. A lone resilient volunteer is the exception.

Neuroticism on Eysenck's EPI. The higher the neuroticism (i.e. the lower the emotional stability), the lower the resilience. This does not mean that volunteering is contraindicated for people with high neuroticism — it means they need a particular kind of support: work with self-regulation, lowering reactivity, calming technique. The programme builds this in as a separate block.

If you are a volunteer coordinator — build structural conditions for social support: teams of 3–5, regular group meetings, mentoring. If you are a psychologist — start the intervention with this scale (not with "general resilience"). If you are a volunteer — the best investment in your own resilience is not self-regulation courses but building a network of people you can turn to. This is not a "soft skill"; it is the principal predictor.

Most resilience-enhancement programmes are built on a single level of influence — coping-skills training, psychoeducation or meditative practices. That works, but only to a degree. Barinov starts from the idea of four-level resilience — personal, motivational, regulatory and behavioural strata. The programme must address all four at once; otherwise change is superficial and unstable.

An integrative approach drawing on three sources. Längle's existential analysis — for work with the four fundamental motivations and meaning. Cognitive-behavioural therapy — to restructure maladaptive thoughts and coping. Rogers's humanistic psychology — for work with self-acceptance, authenticity and openness to experience. The approach integrates them not eclectically but through the four-level concept: different schools work on different levels of the model.

A modular structure. The programme consists of 12 group sessions distributed across 4 modules of 3 sessions each (personal, motivational-meaning, regulatory, behavioural). One module is 3 group meetings of 1.5–2 hours. Overall — about 3 months of work. Alongside the group work, individual consultations are available on demand. 43 participants were involved in the effectiveness trial.

Three types. Psychoeducational — informing participants about psychological processes, risks and resources. Reflective — personal work with one's experience, values and narrative. Practice-oriented — training of specific coping, regulation and communication skills. The combination matters: knowledge without practice does not change behaviour; practice without understanding is shallow and easily rolls back.

A psychologist trained in group work — mandatory. Preferably with experience in one of three traditions: existential analysis, CBT or client-centred therapy. Another format is a tandem of a psychologist and an experienced "veteran" volunteer as co-facilitator, which adds lived expertise. The programme should not be launched without professional support — there is a risk of re-traumatisation during group work with heavy material.

A classical two-group randomised experiment (43 participants in total). The experimental group completed the full 12-session programme. The control group — equivalent in demographic and baseline psychological characteristics — received no intervention. The same battery of methods was administered before and after the programme; comparison ran on two axes: within-group dynamics (pre vs post) and between-group differences at the post-test.

Yes. In the experimental group there was a statistically significant rise across all key resilience indicators (orientation to challenges, self-control, self-determination, stress resistance, constructive coping, social connectedness, optimal regulation, openness to experience, the integral CD-RISC-10). In the control group there were no substantive changes. The gain spread across all 8 components of the Hrishyn model simultaneously — a crucial point, since many similar programmes hit only 1–2 scales.

The author acknowledges several. The experimental sample size (43 participants) does not permit subgroup analyses (e.g. whether the programme is equally effective for novice and veteran volunteers). The absence of an active control — ideally one would compare not with "nothing" but with an alternative programme. Self-report — the instruments rely on what people say about themselves; objective behavioural measures are absent. No longitudinal follow-up — measurements were taken immediately before and after the intervention; testing durability at 6–12 months requires a separate stage. These are tasks for future research.

Three points. Conceptually — the construction of a four-level model of resilience that integrates personal, motivational, regulatory and behavioural levels. Empirically — establishing the leading role of seeking-social-support coping among the predictors. Applied — the creation and testing of a psychological programme whose effectiveness has been demonstrated experimentally.

The dissertation research was conducted in a specific historical context — the war in Ukraine. Some effects may therefore be context-specific and not transfer to other types of crisis. Self-report diagnostics (questionnaires) are limited — additional behavioural and physiological markers would be desirable. The programme was tested on a particular profile of volunteers; it should be adapted for other groups (medical volunteers, civilian populations in combat zones). No longitudinal data — effects were measured immediately after the programme ended; verification at 6–12 months and 1–3 years is needed.

Several directions. Theoretical: studying other psychological resources of volunteers — creativity, leadership, spiritual intelligence — in combination with resilience. Methodological: developing short screening tools for the mass diagnosis of risks among volunteers. Practical: developing differentiated versions of the programme for different groups — from novices to veterans, for different kinds of volunteering. Separately — programmes for post-war recovery.

Several fields. HR in humanitarian organisations — risk diagnostics and structured support. Coordinators of volunteer initiatives — building durable networks and a culture of mutual support. Education — introducing basic courses on the psychological hygiene of helping activity. Public policy — grounding the case for funding psychological support of volunteers as an infrastructural investment rather than an "add-on."