The paper considers social perceptual representations of mother in children. The social perceptive image of mother is associated with a certain attitude, and, consequently, determines the willingness to act in a certain way, the willingness to implement a certain strategy of relationships. The paper presents the results of a large-scale empirical study comprising 7000 high school students.

The sample can be considered quite representative with all necessary parameters, including respondents from big cities and small towns and villages of Russia, complete and incomplete families, families with 1-2 children and large ones. The results of the study in the general sample show that the social perceptual portrait of the mother compises only positive qualities, and does not contain any negative descriptor.

In addition, a high level of concordance (coherence, unanimity) in the perception and assessment of the mother’s respondents was revealed. A comparative analysis is carried out of the mother’s image in the minds of young men and women, in the minds of respondents from complete and incomplete families, from urban and rural families, from families with one or two children and from large families, from large families with many children and many children with many children. As a general trend, the social perceptual portrait of the mother in all groups remains positive. However, certain differences are also found in some changes in most significant qualities. Summing uo, differences are also found in the level of concordance of the respondents’ choice in specific groups that differ in gender or social features.

The main engineering and psychological issues and also trends of controlling engineering manned-space flight are considered. They are determined by social and psychological attitudes that are applicable in the professional sphere of the developmental engineering. The content of the issues and attitudes mentioned are revealed.