Goal-Setting of Modern Students: Inverse Analysis

The article presents the results of a study of the goal-setting of undergraduate students enrolled in the areas of training “Personnel management”, “State and municipal management”, “Psychology”, and “Construction”. The study jointly analyzed the goals stated by students for 1 year, 5 years and more than 5 years (that is, for the rest of their lives).

The theoretical basis of the study was the analysis of inverse relations in hierarchical systems. It is assumed that the value preferences, goals and motives form hierarchical systems in which the lower, subordinate elements under certain circumstances are able to claim the dominant value (this is the phenomenon of inversion). The development of inversions in these hierarchies can lead to the escalation of social contradictions.

The study identified gender-specific goal-setting; Fisher transformation was used to identify the significance of gender differences. In particular, it was found that female respondents are significantly more likely to point to goals related to building a family, giving birth to children, purchasing real estate, getting favorite work; male respondents pay more attention to high earnings. Particular importance was attached to the identification of inversions in the motivational hierarchy, the relationship between narrow and broad social motives. In particular, it was found that narrow social motives related to personal and / or family well-being strongly prevail in the goal-setting of students over broad social motives, as well as over cognitive and research motives. In this case, there is an inversion, as a result of which prosocial motives are inferior to selfish motives, and this inspires some anxiety. At the same time, we observe an evident desire of the vast majority of students to arrange their own family life, despite the crisis of family values identified by many researchers. The motivation to maintain family ties with the older generation is also important. All this can be viewed as a manifestation of prosocial tendencies. 

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