CHARACTERISTICS OF WORLD IMAGE AND VALUE ORIENTATIONS OF EUROPEAN NATIONALITIES’ REPRESENTATIVES

At the present time, in an era of social, economic and political instability, the issue of intercultural interaction is one of the most important ones in the life of modern society. Culture is the basis of social relations, not only because it is passed from one person to another in the process of political socialization and contacts with other cultures’ representatives, but also because it forms in people a sense of belonging to a particular community, determines their psychological profile.

At the present stage of psychological science development, one of the most pressing issues is the world image development. In the psychological literature it is proved that by being the "core of identity", world image has a regulating effect on all aspects of human life. The social world plays a special role in the formation and development of the world image. The world image of the person reflects the specific historical, socio-cultural background, where the formation and development of personality takes place. Stereotypes, values and meanings play an important role in constructing the world image. Different nationalities may have different representations, values and meanings of the same phenomena, different world images.

As it has been shown in numerous studies (G.D. Gachev, S.V. Lurie, A.P. Naminach, V.G. Panov, V.I. Pischik, V.V. Stolin et al.), world image is also differentiated by belonging to certain social groups, ethnic groups, cohorts, professional communities, etc. Currently, one can note the shortage of existing level of knowledge on the issue of cross-cultural characteristics of the world image.

In this context, we carried out an empirical study where the main objective was to identify the role of value orientations in formation of the world image of representatives of Russian, Italian and French nationalities. We proceeded from the assumptions that there may be differences in the development of value orientations and types of world views of European nationalities’ representatives.

Analysis of the results revealed general and specific characteristics of the world image and value orientations of the representatives of Russian, French and Italian nationalities. Data obtained as a result of empirical study may serve as a basis for the development of training programs aimed at the formation of communicative skills for effective interaction with representatives of Russian, French and Italian nationalities. Results of the study allow to deepen the content of psycho-pedagogical work on intercultural communication and formation of national tolerance in society.