COGNITIVE

Introduction. The relevance of the problem of ensuring information security is substantiated. The purpose of the article is to analyze the socio-psychological ways of waging information warfare and the means of counteraction. Information warfare is a confrontation between the parties to a conflict with the help of disinformation.

The presented research consists in a factor analysis of in-group ethnocultural identity of Russian and American respondents. The basis for a questionnaire offered to respondents is constituted by Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure by J. Phinney. Degree of the defined factors influence on ethno-cultural identity has been detected.

Optimal distinctiveness theory manifests «self»-categorization theory development, elaborated for the sake of eliciting reasons due to which individuals strive for identifications with social groups as well as for clarifying social identities roles in attaining and maintaining a steady and fixed «self»-concept.