The success of advertising impact and commercial communication is determined by knowledge about the social-psychological characteristics of a potential buyer, as well as the characteristics of the determinants of consumer behavior, the specifics of the images created by advertising. The most difficult aspect is advertising perfumes. This is primarily due to the specifics of human perception of smells, as well as the complex cross-modality of images created by smells. An important aspect of the choice of perfume is not only personal preference in the world of smells, but also an important aspect of social communication, since smells are a certain “marker” of social status. In addition, perfumery is also a cross-gender product, as it is one of the most popular types of gifts. The study involved 50 people, 25 men and 25 women, potential consumers of advertised perfumes, whose advertising acted as a stimulus material.

The article considers the possibility of using the word as a unit of psychological analysis of fictional texts. The word is understood as a psychological instrument of personal regulation and socialization of personality. The semantic structure of the word in objective and subjective reality is constructed. It is assumed that the types and levels of existence of a word in subjective reality are a sign, a concept and a symbol. In the objective — the sign, the meaning and the name. Using the example of the usage of words associated with the word “humor”, the dynamics and dialectics of mutual transitions of various forms of psychological existence of the word are described. It is proved that the comprehension of the word “humor” and those close to it in the history of poetry led to the “cultivation” of laughter, and the perception of poetic texts contributes to the socialization of personality and the appropriation of cultural standards of humor by it.

The article notes that the problem of imagination has appeared on the periphery of research in modern psychology, focused on positivist methodology and cognitive models of the psyche. Cultural-historical psychology emphasizes the role of imagination in the formation of higher forms of behavior. The paper analyzes the process of formation of imagination in ontogenesis, and also considers the role of imagination in the life of a person. The process of imagination acquires characteristic features depending on the extent to which the personality takes possession of it: whether the imagination obeys the tasks that the person sets for himself, or vice versa, the imagination leads the personality and remains involuntary. The transition from passive to active arbitrary forms is the essence of the cultural development of imagination.

The article discusses the method of studying symbolically mediated social understanding in individuals with social maladaptation, within the framework of the cultural historical approach. It has been developed a qualitative-quantitative experimental method of assessing social understanding in adult individuals, taking into account the use of various symbolic forms. The method comprises of 5 tasks. The pilot empirical study involved 70 adult subjects aged between 20 and 40 years old who had committed an offence. The study demonstrated significant difficulties in symbolising and understanding another person’s subjective reality compared to the control group. The study also revealed that individuals with social maladaptation tend to have a distorted understanding of the mental states of others and insufficient “sensitivity” to their symbolic manifestations. Furthermore, the study has revealed significant positive correlations between the results of fulfilling all tasks of the experimental technique.