Personal-semantic sphere of students with different indices of tendency to cognitive errors

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of the characteristics of the personal-semantic sphere of students with different indices of susceptibility to cognitive errors. The study sample consisted of 235 university students aged 17–25. A comparative analysis revealed the following statistically significant differences in the expression of the personal-semantic sphere components: at the existential level, the degree of expression of the life orientation of trans-situational mastering of the world is higher in students with a moderate index of propensity for cognitive errors. The degree of expression of such basic beliefs as ‘favor of the world’, ‘value of one’s own self’, ‘belief in one’s own value’, ‘degree of luck’, as well as the indicators of the general attitude to the meaningfulness of the world are higher in students who are not prone to cognitive errors. They also have more pronounced communicative and cognitive life meanings. At the level of a person’s relations with the world, statistically significant differences were also revealed. Thus, students with a moderate index of tendency to cognitive errors are the least susceptible to irrational attitudes. Unsatisfactory relationships with parents, insufficient strength of the ‘I’, neurosisprone parenting style, emotional lability, inability to establish social contacts and tendency to somatic disorders are more marked in students prone to cognitive errors. At the same time, indicators related to adaptation within the system of interpersonal relations are higher in students who are not likely to commit them. At the expressive-instrumental level, sociability indicators are higher in students who are not prone to cognitive errors; self-control indicators are more pronounced in students with moderate tendency to cognitive errors; while indicators marking emotional instability, anxiety, tension, depression, self-criticism and emotional lability are higher in students prone to cognitive errors. Adaptive emotional coping mechanisms are more often chosen by students with low and moderate tendency to cognitive errors. The study results confirmed the hypothesis about differences in the expression of components of the personal-semantic sphere at all levels in students with different indices of tendency to cognitive errors.