Abstract

Background. The article highlights the significance of the study of subjective representations about success in life as important components of the individual’s representations of the world and of oneself. The study of these representations will allow to gain the most holistic understanding of the picture of the world of a modern person, as well as to comprehend the causes of many psychological problems and predict options for unfolding the life path of the personality. As a result of the analysis of subjective representations as an independent phenomenon and life success as a meta-resource of the personality, an understanding of subjective representations about success in life is given. The essential characteristics of subjective representations about life success are indicated. 

Objective. Identification of the most stable components of subjective representations about success in life of a modern person. 

Methods. The study was carried out using a structuring content analysis based on inductive category extraction. The detailed answers of the respondents to the question concerning the representations of life success were analyzed. 

Results. The generalized categories of subjective representations about life success are revealed: significant values; a process that is realized through the orientation of a personality “on oneself”, “on business”, “on others”; set of achievements (results); conditional complexity/unilaterality. A meaningful description of each identified category is given with the provision of quantitative data on the frequency of their occurrence. The predominance of the orientation “on oneself ” manifested in the designation of self-realization processes and life enjoyment is revealed. It was found that in the “result” category, the tendency to “have” benefits is most pronounced as compared to the tendencies to “be” and “achieve” goals accompanied by a partial representation of the result. Almost half of the respondents showed unilateral representations about life success, namely, including them in the description of ideas in one category. Along with this, constructive char- acteristics of representations about life success were revealed: the traditional nature of the most significant values (family, work, material well-being, health). Some of respondents have an orientation “to others” and a tendency to “be”. 

Conclusion. The results obtained made it possible to compile a generalized picture of the subjective representations about the life success of a modern personality (using the example of Russians), which outlines the common features as well as reveals the most acute problems.