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ple in the “‒2” group are characterized by excessive aspirations and ambitions, which clash with opportunities for their satisfaction, thereby reducing satisfaction with life. Since they constantly breach the moral norms, they cannot hope to be on friendly terms with the majority in their environment. More than that, immoral people with a high level of egoism, who are sure that it is admissible to take bribes and misappropriate other people’s property, often breach legal norms as well and live in fear of being exposed. All of this generates dissatisfaction with life and human environment, reducing the level of happiness.
The level of happiness in the “+2” group with the clearly pronounced high moral qualities sunk even lower than that in the “+” group. In this case, there is no need for additional explanations, because they are affected by the lack of moral principles in the life of society even to a greater extent.
These findings do not mean that the moral people are unhappy. But by virtue of their psychological peculiarities and the surrounding circumstances, the moral people cannot feel happy in full measure. This investigation enables us to assert that a person with high moral qualities is most likely to be less happy than the majority of people around him. Moral people can be happy, of course, but in this case they more likely than not will seek to have no truck with society’s problems. But it would not be quite correct to draw the opposite conclusion and judge a person’s moral level by his or her level of happiness. If a person is happy, it does not mean that he or she is necessarily immoral.
Conclusion
In keeping with the above approach, only 18% of the 407 respondents are characterized as people with a positive moral orientation, and only 4% of the sample possess high moral qualities. People with a negative moral orientation are twice as numerous (36%). The other respondents, or the “0” group characterized by a vague moral orientation, cannot be described as moral either. Approximately a half of them (45%) have one or two fully formed negative moral convictions: the permissibility of misappropriating other people’s property and that of taking bribes. In addition, 21% of members of this group possess a high level of egoism (41 points and higher). Regrettably, these data once again confirm the generally low moral level of Russian society.
The study has shown that at the current stage people with the negative moral orientation are happier, while people with the positive moral orientation, particularly people with high moral qualities, are less happy. This is why we should once again analyze “what society we have created under the fine-sounding slogans of freedom and democracy,”28 if it is immoral people that feel happier than others.
NOTES
1 The Macropsychology of Modern Russian Society, eds. A. Zhuravlev, A. Yurevich, Moscow, 2009, p. 206 (in Russian).
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2 Russian Public Opinion Research Center (WTSIOM), Press Issue No. 638, “More Educated People, Fewer Honest People?” 27.02.2007 (in Russian). URL: http://wciom.ru/ index.php?id=268&uid=4070.
3 A. Yurevich, D. Ushakov, “The Moral State of Modern Russian Society,” Psychology of Morality, eds. A. Zhuravlev, A. Yurevich, Moscow, 2010, p. 189 (in Russian).
4 Ibid., p. 180.
5 L. Bozhovich, Personality Formation Problems, ed. D. Feldshteyn, Moscow—Voronezh, 1997 (in Russian); B. Bratus, “The Problem of Man in Psychology,” Voprosy psykhologii, 1997, No. 5.
6 N. Shustova, V. Gritsenko, “Sociopsychological Adaptation of Young People and the Attitude to Social Norms,” Psikhologichesky zhurnal, 2007, No. 1, pp. 54-55.
7 S. Rubinshteyn, Fundamentals of General Psychology, St. Petersburg, 2006 (in Russian).
8 I. Laverycheva, “The Genetic Mechanism of Altruism—the Biological Source of Humaneness,” A Dialogue in Education. A Collection of Conference Transactions, St. Petersburg, 2002 (in Russian).
9 K. Muzdybayev, “Egoism of Personality,” Psikhologichesky zhurnal, 2000, No. 2.
N. Fetiskin et al., Psychodiagnostics of Life Quality in the Russian Mentality: A Scientific and Methodological Aide, Moscow—Kostroma, 2006 (in Russian).
M. Argyle, The Psychology of Happiness, London [u. a.], 1987.
12 K. Muzdybayev, op. cit.
G. Zalessky, Psychological Issues of Formation of Convictions, Moscow, 1982, pp. 43-57 (in Russian).
G. Zalessky, The Psychology of Worldview and Personal Convictions, Moscow, 1994, p. 25 (in Russian).
The Sociopsychological Concept of Quality of Life: A Dictionary, Compiled by Ye. Uglanova, Yaroslavl, 2003, pp. 34-35 (in Russian).
A. Baranova, The Economic and Psychological Determinants of Subjective Quality of Life, Moscow, 2005 (in Russian).
D. Malyugin, The Psychological Determinants of Moral Choice, Moscow, 2007, pp. 75-76 (in Russian); Ye. Sageyeva, The Value Orientation in the “I—not I” Continuum and its Connection with the Sociopsychological Characteristics of Personality, Kazan, 2009, p. 19 (in Russian).
A. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, New York, 1975, p. 22.
The Macropsychology of Modern Russian Society, p. 290.
20 I. Nekhorosheva, “Studying Life Quality Differences in People with Opposite Moral Orientations,” Innovation Technologies in Education: Subject Relations, Resources, Technology: A Collection of Transactions of the National Scientific and Practical Conference Held at the University of the Russian Academy of Education on November 1 through 3, 2011, Ed. T. Skripkina, Moscow, 2011(in Russian).
21 A. Baranova, op. cit.
22 The Sociopsychological Concept of Quality of Life: A Dictionary, pp. 10-13.
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23 K. Muzdybayev, op. cit., pp. 37, 36.
24 A. Baranova, op. cit., p. 17.
O. Bondareva, Specific Manifestations of Personality’s Egoistic Orientation in the Space of Marital Relations, Krasnodar, 2009 (in Russian).
The Macropsychology of Modern Russian Society, pp. 201, 204.
27 A. Zhuravlev, A. Kupreychenko, “The Moral Elite in Modern Russian Society: The
Sociopsychological Aspect,” The Psychology of Morality, p. 217 (in Russian).
28 A. Yurevich, D. Ushakov, op. cit., p. 178.
Translated by Aram Yavrumyan