Psychosemantic analysis of environmental consciousness as a factor of sustainable society development

Abstract

The study of psychosemantic aspects of the environmental consciousness of students is an extremely relevant topic in modern realities. This research provides understanding the ways the environmental consciousness of the young generation is formed and developing effective strategies for the education of responsible citizens with a high level of environmental culture, scientific knowledge of the natural environment, methods of environmental safety, capable of ensuring the sustainable development of our society. The purpose of this scientific work is to study the everyday ecological consciousness of students of Stavropol State Agrarian University. The method of experimental psychosemantics, semantic differential method, and the method of multivariate statistics factor analysis were used for the research. The basic constructs determining the students’ perception of the modern ecological reality in the natural environment were identified in the students’ everyday consciousness. The analysis of the results of the research of ecological consciousness of first- and fourth-year students is presented. It is shown that the first-year students perceive the ecological reality through the constructs “responsibility - irresponsibility” and “ecological centrality - anthropocentrism”, and the fourth-year students - through the constructs “ecological literacy”, “rational - irrational use of nature”. First year students perceive the image of an ecologically literate person, a carrier of eco-culture and a nature protector, a person leading an ecologically sustainable lifestyle and a modern student as ecologically responsible and ecologically centered. The novelty of this research lies in the application of psychosemantic method for studying the environmental consciousness of students of agrarian university.