Conceptual and Methodological Foundations of the Political-Psychological Analysis of Political Values

The article presents the conceptual and methodological foundations of the political-psychological analysis of political values developed by the author. Their necessity is due to the complexity of the phenomenon under study, its dual social and psychological nature and multiplicity of manifestations in political practice, on the one hand, and due to the lack of an integrated approach to its study in modern science and the availability of theoretical and instrumental potential of political psychology, on the other. The author proceeds from the understanding of political values as semantic determinants in the sphere of politics, offers a conceptual analysis of the concept of “political value” and an original definition revealing the psychological nature of the phenomenon under study. The concept justifies that political values have the following features: they are few in number, hierarchically ordered and systematically organized, they manifest at the level of mass and individual consciousness. They are resistant to changes in the socio-political context, are symbolic in nature, are associated with the needs and attitudes of people and regulate their political behavior. Political values are expressed in abstract categories, the semantic content of which is revealed in political representations. Political values in society change in the process of sociocultural crises caused by political and socio-economic transformations. The methodology of the study of political values, which develops the conceptual provisions of the author's approach and determines the possibilities for the operationalization of theoretical positions for an empirical study, is based on the provisions of cognitive psychology and the theory of social cognition. Methodological principles presented at different levels of the methodology (general scientific, specific scientific and methodological) are normative in nature and are prescriptions for research activities, both in the field of theoretical developments and in the field of empirical studies of the problem of values. The generalization of the methodological tools developed in the framework of various sociological and psychological approaches allows identifying the most effective diagnostic techniques. The complex of the political-psychological methods is formed on the basis of two basic research strategies - contact diagnostics, allowing to study a person in direct interaction with him or her, and distant assessment, involving the identification of psychological characteristics of a person at a distance through the study of the products of his or her activity. The concept and methodology formulated by the author form a new segment of political and psychological knowledge - the psychology of political values. Diagnostic tools and interpretative schemes developed on its basis allow filling in the existing methodological lacuna and open up new methodological possibilities for further empirical studies of political values in Russian society.

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