Abstract:

The issues associated with the value sphere of personality are the most important in study of person and society as a whole, and studying at university is an important stage in the development of personality of young people, in the formation, stabilization, and transformation of their value system.

The influence of value orientations on social cognition of university students is still understudied. Therefore, the main issue of study was to identify how value orientations allow to predict the perception and understanding by students of the people around them.

We used the following methods: method of diagnosing the real structure of personality's value orientations (Bubnova, 1999), Osgood’s Semantic Differential (adapted by employees of Bekhterev Psychoneurological Institute, 1992), Leary's "Interpersonal diagnosis of personality" (1957) (adapted by Sobchik, 1990). Students had to evaluate themselves when studying the value orientations. The instruction was changed for Semantic Differential and Leary’s test: students were asked to evaluate how they perceive groupmates from their inner circle, with whom they study at university.

We used SPSS Statistics 23, Methods of Descriptive Statistics and Automatic Linear Modeling for statistical data processing.
The sample involved 126 students from Moscow universities, aged from 19 to 27, with 83% of girls among them.
The results of descriptive statistics made it possible to determine the significance of value orientations for students: value of Altruism (M = 4.41) was in the first place, and value of Social Activity (M = 2.21) – in the last place.

Factor of Evaluation model was predicted with an accuracy of 29.8%. In the model influencing the evaluation of inner circle, such value orientations were included: Aesthetic Perception, Altruism (negative coefficient), Health, Pleasure Pastime, Social Activity and Communication also entered with negative coefficient. Factor of Evaluation accuracy was 29.8% Factor of Potency model was predicted with an accuracy of 21.7%. High significance of values of Health, Pleasure Pastime and Communication were predictors of perception and understanding in other people of the power factor as representations about the development of endurance and stamina of groupmates.

Predictors of Factor of Activity – 22.9% were such values as Pleasure Pastime, Knowledge with negative coefficient and Aesthetic perception.

The accuracy of prediction of perception model in other people of dominance as an integral indicator was 31.5%. The model included the high significance of value of Love, Health, reduced value of Altruism, significance of Recognition, low focus on Social Status as a value, significance of Pleasure Pastime, with low significance of Communication.

The value orientations, as it turned out to be, predicted integral indicator of Friendliness with less accuracy - by 15.6%. The model included three values: Material Success, Pleasure Pastime, with a negative correlation to Communication.

As the main limitation of study, we consider the fact that subjects had to evaluate the qualities of personality and type of interpersonal relations of not specific groupmates, but some kind of collective image of their inner circle.

The results of this study can form the basis for development of programs for socio-psychological training aimed at optimizing the processes of social perception on the basis of structural-content characteristics of value system of university students.

Keywords:

Value orientation, social cognition, social perception, students.