Structural and content characteristics of students’ social representations of success

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that young people’s ideas of success characterize their sphere of purposes and aspirations and serve as a regulator for their concept of self-determination and self-realization in a rapidly and varyingly changing social reality. Success orientation includes an evaluative interpretation of the results achieved and attitudes towards them, which is conditioned by the need to solve personal and socially significant tasks. The purpose of the research was to study the structural and content characteristics of students’ social Structural and content characteristics of students’ social representations of success. The study hypothesizes that the representations success by student youth is clearly structured, with content characteristics represented by a combinability of orientations towards externalized and internalized success. The research participants are undergraduate students (N = 108) from Sara tov universities (Saratov State University, Yuri Gagarin State Technical University) aged 19–22 (M = 20.50, SD = 1.5), including 58% females and 42% males. Methods (tools): association experiment (C. G. Jung) based on the stimulus ‘success’ (requiring to write at least 5 words) , content analysis followed by the prototypical analysis (P. Vergès). Resu lts: the study has revealed the structure and content of social concepts of success. The content of the core components is characterized by a combinability of success orientation as a result of achievement of material well-being, as social recognition, and as overcoming of obstacles. The peripheral representation system includes professional and educational aspirations as well as manifestations of personal qualities (competitiveness, flexibility, resourcefulness) that contribute to sustainable success. Main conclusions: the young people’s representations of success focuses on external success (social approval, external achievements: material, social status) combined with internalized success (success as a result of one’s own actions, success as overcoming of obstacles, and success as mental state). Practical Significance: the results can be used in the development of youth programs as well as programs of psychological and pedagogical support for the effective realization of one’s desire for success.