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Our values largely determine how meaningful and prosperous our life is, and how it suits us in general. The sociologists Vladimir Magun and Maxim Rudnev comment on the results of an international sociological study of the inhabitants of Europe and Russia.
Health, happiness, freedom… We hardly realize when we have them, but we are acutely worried when we lose them or fail to achieve them. “Values” is another concept from this series. Psychologists and sociologists call values our ideas about what is important and significant in life, what goals we would like to achieve, what is personally dear to us. It depends on them whether we like our life, relationships with people, the society in which we live. We are talking about the basic preferences that set the attitude to the private aspects of life, influence our actions. It’s not about specific wishes (what kind of job we want to get and how we like to spend our free time), but about a general orientation: are we open to new experience or holding on to traditions, do we definitely want power and money, or do we value harmonious relationships more …
Usually we do not think about values, but there are situations (when you need to defend your position, survive a loss or make a choice) in which values become relevant. If we lack something vital (such as creativity, success, or respect), we will act to bring our values to life. If people or circumstances encroach on them, we will try to protect and preserve them.
There are many values, and they are different for everyone, but there are methods that allow you to compare the values not only of individuals or social groups, but also of entire countries*. At the same time, it turns out that, although each person may have his own unique set of values and their own hierarchy, people of the same circle, of the same culture or nationality are in many ways similar to each other. For us, with our turbulent history of the last century and the border position between Europe and Asia, it was especially interesting to figure out whether the values of the inhabitants of Russia today differ from the values of other Europeans, in what ways we are moving closer to Europe and in what ways we are not similar to it.
International study
Data on the values of the population of 25 European countries were obtained in the course of the European Social Survey, to which Russia for the first time joined in 2006.
Europeans are ready to take risks
The desire for risk and novelty, or, conversely, the tendency to focus on preserving what is, are the extreme points on the axis “Openness to change – Preservation”, which opposes conservatism and change. Of course, many of us avoid extremes, for example, we value independence, paying tribute to traditions. A typical representative of Western and Northern Europe highly appreciates novelty, independence, and the opportunity to have a good time. In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, these values are less pronounced. But in these countries they value security very much.
In Russia, security is generally more important than other values: we are more cautious (or even fearful) than other Europeans, we want to be protected. On the whole, these conclusions coincide with our ideas about fellow citizens as about people who are mostly “stuck”, anxious, counting on the guardianship of the authorities, who value order above freedom. It is no coincidence that the political slogan of “stability” is so popular in our society. By the way, the creators of advertising also take this feature into account: in Russia, the argument in favor of the high quality of a product is more often its “tradition” and “time-tested”, while in the West, ideas of novelty and development are more often used.
The Russians assert themselves
The second value axis “Care – Self-affirmation” gives an idea of the importance for us of the common good in comparison with personal achievements. The population of Russia is characterized by an almost maximum in Europe orientation towards Self-affirmation (achievements, social recognition, power) and a very low significance of Care (attention to others, altruism, tolerance). So “sobornost”, “collectivism” and “communal consciousness” are present more in the imagination of the supporters of the “special path” of Russia’s development than in the real consciousness of Russians.
This ratio of the values of Care and Self-affirmation is largely due to the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet system, the state shifted its social obligations to citizens, concern for public interests lost ideological support, and personal benefit moved from the category of condemned to the number of approved values.
It was not only Russia that experienced the change in the social system, therefore, as far as Self-affirmation is concerned, it differs little from Slovakia, Latvia and Ukraine). In economically prosperous democratic countries, the values of Caring are expressed, on the contrary, much stronger than in our country. For example, in Russia 16% of the population put wealth above freedom, and in most other countries there are no more than 6% of such people; those for whom power is more important than equality, we have 22%, and in France – 7%; for 28% of Russians, it is more important to be successful than to help others, although in neighboring Ukraine there are 18% of such people.
A very moderate desire to think about the interests of others, with a clear desire for personal success and enrichment, means that our society is not very comfortable to live in. We often think that we can achieve what we want only in fierce competition, when the gain of some necessarily means the loss of others. Meanwhile, the individualism characteristic of us can also be non-competitive, that is, it does not necessarily imply rivalry. Values such as autonomy (to make your own decisions, be creative) and hedonism (having a good time, indulging yourself) allow you to assert yourself without harming others. Unfortunately, it is precisely these values that are less pronounced among us than among most other Europeans.
Its among strangers
But here’s what’s interesting: in Russia, in addition to those 80% of the population whose values determine the portrait of the average Russian, there is another 20% with other value priorities. This minority values Caring (rather than Self-affirmation) and Openness to Change (rather than Preservation) much more strongly than other Russians. These tend to be younger and more educated people who live in large cities and have higher incomes. Often they feel in “valuable loneliness”, but, as we see, in fact there are quite a few of them – one in five! True, in France, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden, 60–70% of the population belong to this group, and people belonging to our valuable majority (80%) in these countries make up about a third. Nevertheless, we have reason to be optimistic: each of us can find those who share his values.
* S. Schwartz «Value orientations: Measurement, antecedents and consequences across nations».
In: «Measuring attitudes cross-nationally: Lessons from the European Social Survey». Sage, 2007.
Participants in the study rated on a six-point scale how similar the person described by sociologists was to them**. For example, this: “He (a) is convinced (a) that people should do what they are told. He (a) believes that people should always follow the rules, even if no one is watching. With the help of such portraits of imaginary people, sociologists determined the importance for the survey participant of each of the ten basic values that form four value categories.
- Openness to change (this includes values such as independence, risk and novelty, hedonism).
- Preservation (security, order and rules, traditions).
- Caring (benevolence and universalism, which implies the values of equality, tolerance, protection of the natural environment).
- Self-affirmation (achievement, power and wealth).
These categories, combined in pairs, define a value system of coordinates with two axes: “Openness to Change – Preservation” and “Care – Self-affirmation”. The high importance for the population of the country of the values of one pole (for example, Conservation) means the low importance of the values of the other (Openness to change) and vice versa.
The position of a country in the value system of coordinates indicates how important the values of one category or another are for its “average” inhabitant. The higher the country is located in the figure, the more important the values of Self-affirmation, the further to the right, the more important the values of Preservation.