Formation of individual optimism in working population of Russia in connection with traditional and innovative attitudes

The paper provides a rationale and diagnostics of the approach to the formation of individual optimism in Russian workers in connection with their traditional and innovative value systems. History examples prove that optimism of social sentiment based on trust in new ideas and political programs is unstable. The study of the phenomenon of individual optimism, which is most often associated by researchers with assessments of potential changes in financial situation, is referred to as economic optimism; other types of optimism included into the analysis are emotional and civic optimism. The research problem is formulated by posing the main research question: Can traditional attitudes of the working population in Russia be thought effective and reliable factors in the formation of optimism in comparison with innovative attitudes, provided that they are interconnected with signs of self-sufficiency in workers? To answer the question posed empirically, we used the database of the monitoring surveys conducted by the Federal Scientific and Research Center of Sociology under the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2011, 2017, 2021 and 2023. The methodological solution to the posed problem is based on the calculation of typological categories of workers, revealing features of the relationships between traditional/innovative attitudes and attitudes towards self-sufficiency/dependence on the government. The results of the analysis demonstrated that the essential contribution to the formation of optimism is made by assessments of potential changes in one’s financial situation. Assessments of emotional mood in relation to the present time cannot be viewed as an independent factor in the formation of optimism, since they largely depend on the financial situation and potential improvements thereof in the future. Civic optimism measured by the indicator of the ability to express one’s political views is the collective result of multiple types of influence that workers are able to exert in their daily lives. Economic optimism of workers, whom we call self-sufficient traditionalists, is in no way inferior to that of innovators and clearly outperforms theirs in terms of emotional and civic optimism, which became most noticeable according to the 2023 survey. This makes it possible for us to assert with a high degree of probability that traditional attitudes of the working population in Russia play a constructive role in the process of forming optimism, provided that they are supplemented by signs of self-sufficiency.