Images of the "Other" with "Alien" Ethnicity in the Conscience of Russian Population Living in Border Regions

In the age of dense international relations, heightened by intensive migration flows and local ethnic identity strengthening, the study of social representations of ethnic "others" in public consciousness permit to fulfill the evaluation of the current interethnic situation in the country, explore the latent unconscious groundings for ethnic roles differentiation. As was found in the psychosemantic research in four border regions of Russia, the images of the "Other" are constructed and reshaped through interrelations between different social roles performed by a representative of the other nationality. The core of these generalized images relies on the evaluation of the potential risk and the threat to national security, ethnic conflicts and tension, social inequality, cultural and intellectual level. The self-perception of Russian citizens is contradictory, assembling paternalistic view on other nationality, national uniqueness and superiority with a low self-esteem. Regional mentalities differ from general representations and reflect peculiarities of social perception of their possessors.