MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS OF RELIGIOUSNESS IN THE MIRROR OF PSYCHOSEMANTIC MEASUREMENT: REGIONAL FACETS

Abstract

The religiosity of Russians is changing under the influence of global and local factors that characterize the post-industrial development of society: the repertoire of religious movements and beliefs is changing, religious practices and perceptions of faith and attitudes toward believers are being transformed. Being simultaneously a social and individual quality, reflecting individual experiences and the influence of society, the existing norms and institutionalized (constructed by social actors and formed in the course of socialization) social perceptions of religion and faith, religiosity is reflected in the public consciousness in the form of generalized images, whose characteristics have common, common to all Russians, and unique components, determined by different factors. The article presents the results of psychosemantic studies in four border regions of Russia (Altai Territory, Novosibirsk Region, Altai Republic, Republic of Tuva, n = 200). The images of four carriers of religiosity - "I am a believer, I follow the teachings of the church, I consider myself a follower of a certain religion", "I believe in God in my own way, but I do not practice a particular religion", "I cannot say whether I believe or not", "I am not a believer, such things do not interest me", "I am not a believer because religious teachings are wrong", assessed by the statements from the scale of "Spiritual personality" in adaptation of G. V. Ozhiganova. Several semantic spaces are constructed and interpreted – common for all regions of the study and separate for each region. The authors conclude that the hypothesis of the existence of common bases of categorization is only partially true. The configuration of the images in the space correlates with the ethno-religious features of the region and reflects the specificity of the regional mentality.