TY - JOUR TI - The Development and Approbation of the Semantic Differential “A Strong-willed Person” T2 - Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics IS - Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics KW - volition KW - volitional effort KW - strong-willed person KW - semantic differential KW - semantic universal AB - The article describes the procedure of developing the semantic differential "A strong-willed person", which took seven stages. A semantic differential (SD) is a special form that has a number of advantages in comparison with a traditional questionnaire. The SD method enables a respondent to assess the degree of manifestation of qualities or characteristics of the evaluated concept (my volitional qualities) and allows for a wider differential range of answers. In addition to that, the "A strong-willed person" SD allows to embrace a semantic diversity of the concept of volition, which is one of the most complicated psychological phenomena. The analysis of the psychological and philosophical literature as well as dictionaries has made it possible to identify the first set of descriptors. The second set of descriptors was developed on the basis of the free associative experiment (102 respondents) and the method of defining concepts using the expertise of the professional psychologists (the 1-3 stages of SD elaboration). During the fourth stage, a primary form of the SD "A strong-willed person" was worked out on the basis of the primary matrix of the group assessment results (62 people), which was processed by identifying the semantic universals of the group assessment and the factor analysis (the fifth stage). Finally, the working version of the SD was designed to gauge the volitional qualities of a person. The adherence to the semantic structure of the assessment proves the constructive validity of the suggested form, while the method of semantic reconstruction confirms its content validity. The developed technique can be used as a diagnostic tool in consulting psychology. It might also be helpful in self-discovery and self-development. AU - Ol'ga Smirnova AU - Vladimir Serkin UR - https://psy-journal.hse.ru/en/2020-17-2/375263100.html PY - 2020 SP - 210-222 VL - 17