The Image of the World as a Psychological System and Its Environmental Determinantsy

Abstract

The image of the world is considered as a psychological system that includes spatial-temporal and value-semantic dimensions. The theoretical analysis of the research problem allows us to state as follows. There is a contradiction between the significance of objective natural and geographical factors in the formation of a human's lifestyle, and the lack of knowledge of their influence on the formation of his subjective image of the world. The pur-pose of this article is to study the determination of subjective chronotopic characteristics of the human world image by objective environmental factors. The study involved 450 residents of 10 Russian cities that differ significantly in their natural and geographical features. The following characteristics of the respondents’ place of residence were evaluated: geographical latitude; the degree of discrepancy between the offi-cial time zone and the actual time set by geographical longitude; the average annual tempera-ture; the number of sunshine hours per year. The complex of psychodiagnostic methods included the author’s questionnaire of structure identity; the graphic test "Circles"; the scale of polychronous values; the scale of time value as an economic resource; the semantic differen-tial of time; the author’s methodology of studying value preferences; the test of life-meaning orientations. Natural and geographical features of the life environment determine significant diffe-rences in the spatial-temporal and value-semantic characteristics of the subjective image of the world. Representatives of the northern territories have a significant belonging to the modern generation, the semantic connectedness of the time perspective, and the subjective value of time. They see their present and future as about anxious and tense; they focus on the values of adaptation, as well as internality. Residents of warm regions have a more signi-ficant gender and family identity, semantic connectedness of the time perspective, anxiety of their present, orientation to the values of adaptation. If the officially set time goes ahead over the actual longitudinal time, it is correlated with the disturbing image of the present, the idea of saturation, brightness and iridescence of past and future, focus on the value of sociali-zation. The environmental characteristics of residence have a significant impact on the subjective image of reality. The greatest value among the considered determinants is the geographical latitude of the place of residence. The influence of environmental determinants on the subjec-tive parameters of the image of the world is indirectly related to the intermediate links such as economic and cultural type or psychophysiological characteristics of life activity in the corresponding natural conditions.