Abstract:

Faced with the fierce competition in the metropolitan, the whole society is largely concerned about college students’ attitudes and value orientation towards life and death, and life education occupies a great important part of plans of maturing undergraduates in all universities. In such a context, research on college students’ life cognition and value orientation is of great realistic and theoretical significance. Life cognition is an overall understanding towards the process of life and death, and a psychological quality evolving with age. In the basis of life cognition, value orientation towards life is an individual’s fundamental views and attitudes about the value of life, the meaning of life, ideals and goals in life and a series of closely related with the existence of life issues. In the social context of life education , from three perspectives of cognition, emotion and intention, 812 undergraduates of grade one and three from four schools in Shanghai, recruited and participating in the projecting principle, including syntax tests and simulated situations, were measured their current levels of knowledge and feelings and features of value orientation towards life, in order to explore the developmental extent of undergraduate’s knowledge and feelings on life and death, and to conclude the traits of their value orientation towards life in contemporary. The results showed that（1）College students’ knowledge about life was characterized by the attitude-expressing cognition. And the expressions had the positive and cherishing features towards life. However, the development of the knowledge about death was stayed in the abstract cognition, and college students were intended to use neutral, conceptual and simple words to describe the meaning of death. Furthermore, female showed more deeply and variedly to life and death than male.（2）In the traits of value orientation towards life, undergraduates emphasized on interpersonal relationship. Their actor would be inclined to love, and to be responsible to their family.

Key words: Life Cognition, Value Orientation towards Life, Projective Test

摘要：

在生命教育的社会背景下，以上海四所高校的一年级和三年级的812名在校本科生为研究对象，运用造句和模拟遗书等投射方式，并结合小组访谈等形式，旨在测查大学生对生命过程与死亡现象的认知特征，及对生命意义的价值取向，以此探究当代大学生的生命认知和生命价值取向的发展特点。结果发现：（1）当代大学生对生命的认知以表达态度为主，具有积极向上、珍爱生命的特点；而在对死亡的认知上，则主要采用本质认知的方式进行表述，以中性、概括、简洁为主要特点；（2）总体来看，女生比男生对生命过程和死亡现象的认知更为积极，体悟更深；（3）在生命价值取向方面，当大学生更多地表现出关顾他人的价值取向，并伴有强烈的家庭责任意识。

关键词: 生命认知, 生命价值取向, 投射测验