Background. In contemporary social life, caricatures and collages have not only become a type of art but also a specific means of damaging a person's honor and dignity. However, proper criteria have not been developed for the evaluation of such images in terms of their impact on insulting honor and dignity, so the offended have no justified legal grounds to see damages.objective. The objectives of this study are to define possible degrees of offence inflicted by political cartoons and collages, to set criteria that will make it possible to classify a certain image as having a particular degree of offensiveness, and to define the gender and status aspects of the perception of political cartoons and collages.design. An experimental analysis was carried out of caricatures and collages of politicians that were published in the world press. Results. During this research, differential assessment criteria were set to identify the degree of offensiveness caused by insulting images, which can serve as a basis for psychological court examination in cases of personal offence. Four degrees of image offensiveness were defined: high offensiveness, medium offensiveness, minor offensiveness and ambivalent. Obscene images are generally referred to as highly offensive. Ambivalent images do not contain any elements that are perceived by the public as offensive, although they can be subject to judicial review if it is demonstrated that the victim has certain individual characteristics that make this person suffer when denigrated.conclusion. It was found that the criteria for the assessment of insulting political cartoons and collages that depict female politicians are different from the assessment criteria of images that feature male politicians. It was also found that the higher the social status of the depicted person, the wider the range of the image elements perceived by the public as offensive. The results of the study have certain limitations, as image evaluation criteria may differ in different cultures.