Psychosemantical Analysis of Gifted Personality as Perceived by Students

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the psychosemantics of implicit ideas about a gifted personality among modern students of humanities and technical specialties. The purpose of the study is a psychosemantic analysis of the image of a gifted personality based on implicit representations of students of various specialties and uni-versities. The sample consisted of 229 respondents: 88 people of humanitarian specialties, 141 technical ones. The age of the sample participants ranged from 17 to 22 years. The sample was equal in gender composi-tion.The methodological basis was the concept of the study of the hierarchical structure of the image of a per-son in the consciousness of an individual and a group, proposed by V.L. Sitnikov. The study showed that stu-dents ideas about a gifted personality are similar and lack scientificity. The basis of the structure and content of the image of a gifted personality among students of humanities and technical fields of various universities of St. Petersburg are the characteristics of the intellectual sphere of the individual. The most unpopular were the acquisitive characteristics describing the peculiarities of the attitude to material values. Social characteristics were in second place in terms of frequency of occurrence. Comparative analysis has shown that social charac-teristics are more important for humanities students. They also use bodily, physical and emotional characteris-tics more often. For this group of students, it is characteristic to indicate the negative qualities of a gifted per-son. In the group of students of the technical direction, when describing a gifted personality, names and quali-ties of activity are more often used. Psychosemantic analysis of the implicit concept of a gifted personality of modern students has shown that the image of a gifted person is associated with the profile of professional train-ing of students. Students of technical specialties tend to describe a gifted personality to a large extent through its implementation in activities and through specific categories. Humanities students, perhaps due to their pro-fessional preferences, distinguish social characteristics. In general, among the most common words describing a gifted personality, students of different fields of study did not reveal fundamental differences in the hierarchy of definitions of a gifted personality.