The Comparison of Substantial and Dynamic Parameters Personal Value-Meaning Systems of American and Russian University Students

Abstract

The comparison of substantial and dynamic parameters of personal value-meaning systems of American and Russian students (n=56) has revealed social and cultural differences among them. Substantial specifics demonstrate differences in the ranking of such values as freedom, health, cognition and close friendship within the general hierarchy of personal values. Dynamic specifics, in their turn, reveal themselves in a difference of perception of the attainability of values as well as in the level of realizability of the said values. The amount of the latter is significantly higher in American students. Results of this research search show that American students have defined their life goals through the process of education and fulfill the existential phase of realization of meaningfulness. Russian students, on the other hand, are still in the process of searching for meaning of activity and have yet to make their choice of life perspectives