The image of socially active individual in the representations of student youth

The study of students’ representations of a socially active individual is one of the major tasks of psychology of education. The purpose of the study is to carry out analysis of characteristics of an image of a socially active individual in the representations of student youth and to correlate them with self-assessment of social activity and assessment of real social activity. Students aged 17-23 years (n=251) took part in the study М=20.11, SD=1.2 (41% men). We used the polling method with the scales developed by the authors of the present study in order to identify self-assessment of social activity, to evaluate real activity; and the associative experiment method. In the study we analysed qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the image of a socially-active individual in the representations of university students. We have established major meaningful characteristics of representations (personal qualities, self-improvement and personal transformation, states, representation in the group, process and activity-related characteristics). Conclusion has been made about the connection between the intensity of students’ social activity and cognitive complexity of the image of a socially active individual and the content of subjective (initiative, confidence) and psychodynamic (vigour) categories in it.