A psychosemantic approach to reconstruction of political mentality: Research methods and examples

Abstract

The possibility of using psychosemantic methods in political psychology is considered. One such method is the reconstruction of categorical structures, through the prism of which man perceives the world and events happening in the world. The psychosemantic approach is associated with building multidimensional semantic spaces that serve as an operational model of categorical structures of the human conscious and subconscious. It is useful for studying the perception of political and sociocultural problems, helping to reveal in-depth setups and stereotypes that are reflected poorly, or concealed due to their social undesirability, and therefore, are hard to diagnose. Examples of using this approach in the study of psychosemantic consciousness are given.