Abstract:
This study examines the psychological impact of conformism on the formation of students' value orientations in the process
of social adaptation. An original interpretation of conformism is proposed as a mechanism of value contagiousness, within
which norms and attitudes spread in the student environment, similar to cultural viruses. Through rituals, repetition, and
group pressure, individual meanings are transformed, often without a conscious choice of the individual. On the basis of the
developed V-ConScale scale, a model for quantitative diagnostics of a student’s susceptibility to value infection and the level
of their reflexive stability is presented. This work combines philosophical and psychological analysis with an applied
pedagogical focus and offers tools for monitoring, preventing, and supporting the processes of students’ semantic adaptation
in the university environment. The concept can be useful for designing educational strategies aimed at developing an
authentic, critically thinking subject.
