Symbolic Components of Perception of Political Parties

The article presents the results of a study of the formation of ideas about a political party through a system of symbols associated with this party in the minds of citizens. The image of a political party has both a rational component, which is fixed at the verbal level quite clearly, and its features that are not fully understood by the respondents and can be reflected in images in the form of symbols. In this case, the symbol acts as a non-detailed image, a kind of generalization of the idea of the essence of the party, which, in addition to the content, includes evaluative (positive – negative) and identification (us – them) components.