One of the tasks of modern education is to prepare future specialists for competition. At the same time, the em-pathy and humanistic values of representatives of socionomic professions make them relatively more vulnera-ble to the stress of competition, including the need to regularly maintain their competitive ability. Objective: to study students’ readiness to compete and to develop psychological means of its development. Methods: “The level of competitiveness”, “The level of ability to self-learning and self-education” (V.I. Andreev); correlation analysis. Sample: 46 students studying socionomic professions. Results: The prevalence of students’ average level of competitiveness and ability to self-education is revealed. A set of psychological education measures is developed, contributing to the formation of adequate ideas about competition, about the qualities that hinder self-education and competitiveness, the formation of skills of organization of developmental leisure and self-regulation in stressful situations, the development of productive solutions and the implementation of competi-tive interaction. Available methods are used, recommended for the activities of the psychological service and in the teaching of special courses in psychology.