M.A. Kholodnaya’s scientific contributions

The article presents the theoretical and empirical results about the role of conceptualization phenomenon in ensuring the intellectual activity productiveness and the coping behavior effectiveness. Conceptualization is a conceptual cognitive activity, allowing the person to generate a qualitatively new way of understanding what is happening, including other people and oneself. The conceptualization is analyzed in four aspects: structural, functional, procedural and resultative. The authors describe the empirical results, characterizing the functional (the role of generative abilities in intellectual activity productiveness in adolescence, youth and adulthood) and resultative (the construction features of difficult life situation mental model as a coping behavior factor) aspects. On the basis of a studies series shown that the conceptual abilities are predictors of intellectual activity productiveness in psychometric measurement and also in real achievements (academic, intellectual, creative, professional). The generative ability characterizes the person s ability to generate objectified "mental picture" of an event in the absence of the necessary information. In studies of conceptualization as a factor of psychological well-being and preserve activity in elderly; and different styles of humor (as the conceptual ability to create funny, metaphors and new meanings) as a ways of coping it is concluded that the conceptual model of the situation and its peculiarities are a moderator between the person's mental resources and the coping behavior effectiveness.