Russian Citizens' Representations of the Country's Position in the Geopolitical Space of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe, and the World

The aim of this research was the reconstruction of the system of categories through which Russians perceive the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Europe, and the world as a whole; to study the implicit model of the geopolitical space; to analyze the stereotypes in the perception of different countries and the superposition of mental geopolitical representations onto the geographic map. The techniques of psychosemantics by Petrenko, originating in the semantic differential of Osgood and Kelly's “repertory grids,” were used as working tools. Multidimensional semantic spaces act as operational models of the structures of consciousness, and the positions of countries in multidimensional space reflect the geopolitical stereotypes of respondents about these countries. Because of the transformation of geopolitical reality representations in mass consciousness, the commonly used classification of countries as socialist, capitalist, and developing is being replaced by other structures. Fou...