Plans for the future and the ability to predict as cognitive navigators of a person's social success

Social success is an ambiguous category that has both external and internal criteria. Despite the difficult comprehension of the criteria and the ambiguity of their interpretation in different cultures and social strata, the desire for success in the form of various behavioral tendencies and manifestations is considered inherent in most people. The research results presented in the article were obtained on samples of different age groups: adolescence, young, adult age periods (from 17 to 45 years). The criteria of social success are considered through the prism of the leading activity of the age and are used as the basis for differentiating the samples into socially successful and unsuccessful respondents. The study is comparative in nature and shows that the cognitive markers of socially successful respondents differ from the mental trajectories of socially unsuccessful respondents. In adolescence, social success is accompanied by clear formulated goals and conscious plans for the future; in young and adult ages, while maintaining awareness of plans, socially successful respondents also have a high level of predictive abilities, expressed in the validity of the thinking process, flexibility of thinking, plasticity of ideas and the prospect of causal relationships. These cognitive characteristics allow a person to build mental processes in such a way that they accompany the person's social success.