In the youth environment in transition conditions, processes related to the rethinking of life goals and ways of achieving them become more active. In social reality, deviant ways of achieving goals are presented in the form of meanings-judgements, reflecting the principles of separation and self-assertion at the expense of others. In the article they are understood as sociocultural deviations. Their formation in social reality is conditioned by the contradictions forming in society. The self-regulation of sociocultural deviations is understood as a conscious choice by young people in their own self-determination of the principles of dissociation and self-affirmation as optimal, from their point of view, in the emerging conditions of the ways of achieving the goals of life activity. Based on empirical research by the Centre for Sociology of Youth (Institute of Social and Political Research, Federal Research Centre for Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences), the author considers the peculiarities of self-regulation of socio-cultural deviations of young people depending on their age, place of residence, religious identification, family and trust factor. Young people aged 15-17 are more often oriented in their life activities towards the choice in favour of sociocultural deviations than young people from older age groups. Respondents from low-income groups are more willing to use physical force in a dispute with opponents. In groups in which respondents conceptualise family as an instrumental value, young people are more likely to assert themselves at the expense of others and show disrespect for adults in order to achieve their goals than in groups in which family is conceptualised as a terminal value. Young people who do not trust others are more likely to focus on socio-cultural deviations to achieve their life goals, compared to respondents who build relationships with others on trust.