88 Social sciences

answer the question, if there are really differences in the sociopsychological state of our contemporaries with high, medium and low moral qualities and what these differences are all about? Is the level of dissatisfaction with life higher in people with high moral qualities? Do they feel less happy, or, on the contrary, it is peo­ple with low moral qualities, who are less happy than others?

On the one hand, the leading Russian psychologists, such as Lidiya Bozhovich and Boris Bratus,⁵ have repeatedly pointed out that the moral person is more harmonious and prey to fewer intrapersonal conflicts, something that theoretically should heighten the general satisfaction with life and happiness. In addition, certain research papers have revealed less satisfaction with life in those inclined to violate social norms.⁶ On the other hand, socially important matters tend to become personally important as the moral development level of man goes up.⁷ This is why moral individuals are likely to be affected most painfully by societal problems, of which there are enough and to spare. Irina Laverycheva believes that the altruists “contract sufferings” from “the life of other people, rather than from their own life.”⁸ There are empirical studies confirming that people with positive moral characteristics are less happy, while egoists are, on the contrary, happier.⁹ But Kuanyshbek Muzdybayev’s investigations were con­ducted in the 1990s during the transition from socialism to the so-called robber oligarchic capitalism. He explained that his results were due to the then existing socioeconomic circumstances, under which people prepared to breach moral norms proved more “successful.” This result, therefore, could have been situa-tional and true for that period alone. It is to be regretted that more detailed and deep-going investigations of the extent of happiness in people with different moral levels living in the present-day Russian environment were not conducted.

The Empirical Study

Given the importance of and insufficient penetration into this problem, the author of the present article gauged, from 2011 to 2012, the level of happiness in people differing in the amount of egoism and firmness of their moral conviction that it is inadmissible to keep what does not belong to you or take bribes. The happiness study is part of this author’s larger-scale analysis of the quality of life of people with different moral orientations.

This work considers moral convictions and egoism as the main indicators of a personality’s orientation in the moral sphere or a personality’s moral orienta­tion. A number of scholars (Konstantin Platonov, Anatoly Maklakov) hold that inner convictions are the supreme form expressing a personality’s orientation. Other scholars, in addition, regard convictions as the main worldview compo­nent (Grigory and Mark Shtraks, Boris Tselkovnikov), as the core of the moral consciousness (Larisa Antilogova), and as the pivot of human personality (Sergey Inshakov). Generally, a personality’s orientation in the moral sphere can be egoistic or humanistic (L. Bozhovich), positive or negative (Anatoly Zosi-movsky), and consequently the egoism-altruism axis and the personal-group-

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public-universal dimension can be regarded as the central axis of the moral ori­entation. This is why, the investigation, by diagnosing moral convictions and egoism, evaluated a more general moral characteristic—a personality’s moral orientation.