In the article the authors review stylistic and typological peculiarities of thinking of the representatives of engineering specialties. In the research rather new and seldom applied in diagnostic practice psychological techniques were used ("Measuring Technique of the Art of Thinking" (by A.K. Belousova); a questionnaire "The Art of Thinking" (by R. Bramson, A. Harrison, adapted by A.A Alexeev); a technique "Choice of Direction" by E. Torrance; a questionnaire "Definition of Thinking Type and Creativity Level" and diagnostics by J. Bruner's technique). These techniques allowed establishing interesting facts about the peculiarities of mental activity of cartographers and garment design engineers. The obtained results can be useful both for psychologists, and human resources specialists, managers.

Keywords: thinking, art of thinking, thinking type, creativity, joint mental activity, professional activity

The article discusses problems of hope and the relation to life of representatives of technical specialties. Approaches to studying of hope as sociocultural and social-psychological phenomenon are briefly described. It is noted that the hope is the metavalue of human life. Authors emphasize that the fulfillment of vital events of any modality, both positive, and negative, leads to change of expressiveness of hope. In article on the basis of empirical data features of hope and the relation of experts of a technical profile to various stages of the life are analyzed.

Keywords: hope, spheres of hope, life satisfaction, relation to life, life events