Background. A wide circle of multidisciplinary researchers share interest in motivation factors of Wikipedians, i.e. virtual volunteers, members of the online world’s largest online encyclopedia «Wikipedia», who consolidate personal resources to manage comprehensive aggregation of free knowledge. Nevertheless, the question of the driving forces of this prosocial behaviour is still open.

Objective. It is assumed that for a full understanding of the determined online activities of Wikipedians we need to analyze the value orientations to which they give personal preference. In accordance with this, the following goal was set: to identify the shared values of the experienced transnational core of Wikipedia authors.

Design. Based on the semantic units derived from previous cycles of disparate academic studies of Wikipedia’s practical development, we conducted a content analysis of a transnational survey. The recipients were 65 authors of multilingual Wikipedia segments (83% males and 17% females) with average experience of 9.9 years compilation of encyclopedic articles.

Results. The constitutive system of invariant internal and external value orientations characteristic of Wikipedians is disclosed. It is found that in the most cases Wikipedians find a number of personal significant reasons for participating in the Wikipedia, the reasons resonating with their inner essence.

Conclusion. The internal value orientations of Wikipedians include: self-development (self-improvement, self-assertion, self-realization); reciprocal (mutual) altruism; a tendency to high quality and systematization of knowledge; a pleasure of creation; autonomy; recreation (hobby, entertainment); meaningfulness; preservation of personal heritage. The external value orientations include: preservation and development of the cultural heritage / language segment; promotion and popularization of Wikipedia (its ideology and principles); low transaction costs and convenience (attractiveness) of the system; affiliation; social identity; improvement peace («Weltverbesserungs Antrieb»); building bridges between cultures and languages. It is summarized that a detailed study of the identified value orientations and also other psychological characteristics of Wikipedia volunteers can significantly expand theoretical concepts of functioning and the applied value for the organization of volunteer practices to disseminate knowledge as the highest value of humanity.

Background. The necessity of youth policy development is caused by negative social tendencies not only in Russia but all over the world. Control of social behavior may be one of the guidelines in its development and determining problem areas.

Objective. The objective of the paper is to study social representations about «the contemporary hero» in students of the psychology and teacher-training specialty. The main issue of the research is the difference of social representations about «the contemporary hero» in students of different specialties and different values.

Design. The methods include the author's questionnaire for revealing social representations that consists of incomplete sentences, open and associated questions, and also the technique for identifying Schwartz’s values. The sample consists of 96 students representing 4 careers (physical training, psychology, defectology, elementary education).

Research Results. The results of the study show that within the given groups insignificant statistical distinctions on values are revealed. However, character and discrepancy of values are different within the 4 groups under consideration. In the groups with inconsistent structure of values social representations are also inconsistent: the students have no example for identity, they cannot identify names of particular persons to the hero image, definition of the hero and the specified persons do not coincide. In contrast, within the group of harmonious structure of values specified persons, exemplary models for imitation coincide with that definition of “the contemporary hero”. The most harmonious structure of values and less inconsistent social representations about «the contemporary hero» are revealed in Physical Training students, whose most inconsistent values and social representations are revealed in the group of Psychology students.

Conclusion. Stereotypical interiorized social representations about “«the contemporary hero” are dominant in the student, which does not allow them to transfer that image to the future subordinates. The major part of the students do not see examples for imitation and for identification among celebrities. Researches on a more vast sample will allow to specify the data to develop recommendations for updating the youth policy in this field.

The paper presents the results of the sociological study of life values in researchers in the sphere of education. According to a specially designed questionnaire that included 72 questions, 721 people were interviewed. The sample of respondents included employees with different levels of academic qualifications and experience of professional activity, living in various regions of Russia. The respondents are the employees of the Scientific Research Institute and various universities. The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of social demographic features (age, gender, financial status) and a number of social indicators of professional activity (seniority, position, availability of scientific degrees and titles, having a permanent job or working flexi time, publication activity) to life values in researchers. Special attention is paid to the influence of the emotional assessment of their life prospects, social status in the scientific group and migration plans over the evaluation of the significance of certain life fears. The research results reveal the hierarchy of the life values in researchers. The influence of traditionalist gender differences in the value orientations of researchers is emphasized. Two developmental stages are to identified with the significant transfer changes of life orientations in researchers. The influence of the scientific status (academic degree, academic rank, position held, publication activity) on the value orientations and professional well-being of the scientific employee are highlighted. The common data show the role of social psychological factors (assessing the success of their life prospects, social status in the team, migration plans) in determining the significance of certain life values. The identified trends are interpreted with respect to the issues of social success and professional development of researcher.

The paper presents the results of the value orientation research in high school students, Moscow, Russia. The sample (N=62) included 22 education and universal values and also self-attitude parameters using the four types of emotional attitude to learning. These types of motivation profile were obtained via pre-factorization estimates of the seven values of school life using the method of semantic differential, which allowed to estimate the severity of a positional or status motivation (1), achievement motivation (2), learning and cognitive motivation, (3) and motivation of affiliation (4). This enabled to further estimate the factor and correlation analysis of the parameters studied, which shows that the system of values is significantly different in males and females of the same age, even in relation to the same mean value of motivation. Motivation, values and self-attitude organize stable systems – on the current sample allocated the four most common systems, i.e. the four factors that are specific for both males and females. Simultaneously, there are systems of values dependent on expressiveness and the combination of a certain type of motivation, and independent of the type of motivation.

Female educational and cognitive motivation and positional (status) motivation related to the values were merged into one factor, but for males one factor includes achievement motivation and (with the opposite sign) affiliation motivation. While the self-realization of females occurs in the process of learning (the value of «selfimprovement in their studies»), and in the future they see an opportunity for self-realization through the value of «happy family life», the males with this motivation connect their opportunity for self-realization with other values, i.e. «health», «recognition by other team members», «my authority.»

The article presents the results of a large-scale study of value-motivational orientation identity of adolescents living in various regions of the Russian Federation in connection with the characteristics of the social situation of development (family, school). The data obtained in the study allows to identify the most appropriate formation procedures aimed at development of adolescent orientation in value aspects of social relations. Such concepts as morality, value orientations are increasingly used in describing the development trends in society, forming the worldview of the younger generation; the relevant questions are: how is the process of formation of human moral values going; what factors determine the direction and dynamics of this process? The study involved 2731 teenager (46.1% male, 53.9% female) from different regions of the Russian Federation (total 6 sites); 937 parents of adolescents; 125 teachers. Every site included 2 cities, distinguished by population and by status (one of the city is a regional capital). The identified connections of value orientations of students with various psychological characteristics of teachers and parents tell about the adverse trends in the formation of value-moral spheres of adolescents and bring to the fore the problem of working with these characteristics.

This article analyzes the content and formal dynamic performance of management vision, their relationship to the personal characteristics of the chief executive, and also the description of management types of managerial vision identified in the empirical study of the Russian middle and senior managers.

The managerial vision is deemed as the understanding of the future by the chief executive of the organization, which includes the anticipatory image of the company’s future and willingness to inform the employees about it. The empirical research is based on the conceptual framework of studying the managerial vision of the organization as a social psychological phenomenon in which we have identified its basic features and determining factors. According to the conceptual framework of the research, the managerial vision performance refers to its content (the structure of vision) and formal dynamic characteristics.

The paper deals with the psychological types of managerial vision: focused on the business strategy, focused on the external environment, focused on experience, focused on staff, focused on creating team vision.

When describing and analyzing these issues we considered several parameters to develop the typology basis: a significance content components vision, his formal dynamic characteristics (clarity of vision, the vision of his/her role of the chief executive in the future of the organization, optimism about the future image, creating team vision and longitude of the prospective), particular attitude of managers to the characteristic of time (character of temporal orientation), value orientation of the chief executive, the level of corporate confidence.

The paper considers motivation and values of natural geography students. Data on motivation and values of students’ future career and their dynamics from 1st to 5th course is described.

The study of motivation and value orientation of students of chemistry, biology and geography was carried out in the Dniester Moldavian Republic at the Department of Natural Geography of the Dniester Shevchenko State University. The study allowed the development of a psychological support program for the professional development of students at all grade levels in higher school.

The author analyses motivation for choosing a future career and for studying in higher school and their interrelations with valuable students’ orientations are examined. It has significant value during organization of the psychological support actions which are directed to students’ psychological support. The study of value orientations and life spheres revealed that for young people in the early professional development, the most important parts of life are the professional sphere, material well-being and self-development. By the end of training value orientations of students correspond to the social economic relations that are dominant in society: spiritual values that are important at the beginning of training and the values of self-development are replaced by social ones.

The study allows the development of a psychological support program for the professional development of students at all grade levels in high school, which is aimed at supplying them with information, developing motivation and value orientation on the future professional activity and promotes self-awareness in the career they have chosen.