This article analyzes the methodological issues of the study of the phenomenon of social character. Social character is considered not as a typical (modal) individual character in society. As a systemic formation of social interactions, social character has non-additive (emergent) properties. Both individuals and various social communities are subjects of social character. At the individual level, social character is manifested as typical behavior traits in the process of communicating with different social groups. At the level of interpersonal, intergroup and mass communication, social character is a typical form of social interaction. Social character is the result of the mutual influence of subjects on individual behavior in the form of persuasion, suggestion, imitation and infection. The article analyzes the methods of measuring social character. It presents a test developed by one of the authors (R. B Shaikhislamov) to measure the degree of inner-, tradition- and other-directedness (according to D. Riesman’ stypology). The results of the measurement of social character in the course of interviewing residents of the Republic of Bashkortostan in 2015-2016 are presented. The authors come to the conclusion about the need for a comprehensive study of social character. The following problems are of great scientific interest. What are the emergent properties of social character in stable and unstable social situations? What are the trends of changes in the social character of Russians in the post-Soviet era? How significant are the differences in the social character of different generations, ethnic groups, residents of megacities, other cities and villages? We note that it is necessary to develop a system of indicators to measure social character. In addition to such indicators as inner-, tradition- and other-directedness, it is necessary to measure social character by such variables as "dominance – subordination", "productivity – non-productivity", "responsibility – irresponsibility", "cooperation – isolation", "trust – distrust", "Conformity – Innovation – Ritualism – Retreatism – Rebellion".

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The article exposes the issues of the social character of young people. Problems of the social character are underdeveloped in the socio-psychological and sociological literature. Meanwhile, dynamic social, political, and spiritual processes, and their increasing uncertainty, make research aimed at studying the formation of social character of both the entire society and different generations more and more popular. The role of social character as a factor of social stability is contradictory. It can both pose a barrier to social transformations, and serve as a basis for preserving the integrity of society in crises. Social character is the socio-psychological basis for the sustainable development of society. The authors of this research offer their view on the phenomenon of social character as a manifestation of a system of orientations (stable orientation, principles, ideals, beliefs) in the social behavior of an individual, group, and society as a whole. Due to the internal socio-psychological stability of the individual, their behavior is also stable in a variety of situations. Personality reflection and assessments in the form of judgments about their individual and social character represent the self-concept. The article analyzes manifestation levels of youth orientations: self-orientation, orientation-to-tradition, orientation-to-others. The authors conclude that the differentiation between youth orientations is weak. The social character of young people is a synthesis of weakly manifested orientations towards themselves and orientations towards tradition, with the peripheral position of orientation towards others.