Vol 27, No 4 (2024)
Sociology of Labor
The Influence of Organizational and Individual Factors on Employee Burnout
Abstract
Over the past few years, the problem of burnout has become widespread. Despite the growing number of publications and studies, most of them focus primarily on the psychometric properties of burnout, and they are more descriptive than explanatory in nature. In publications, there is a noticeable dominance of psychological approaches and research at the individual level, which entails practical recommendations for changing the attitudes and behavior of workers, making improvements at specific workplaces, without affecting more fundamental decisions at the level of the organization as a whole. The article discusses the results of an empirical study, the purpose of which is to determine the presence and nature of the relationship between a number of organizational and individual factors and the components of burnout among employees of an industrial company. Data were collected through a survey of 915 employees in February-March 2022. To identify the relationships between factors and such components of burnout according to the model of K. Maslach and colleagues, such as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduction of personal achievements, three regression models were built, which showed a fairly high explanatory power. As a result of statistical analysis of the collected data, factors were identified that both increased and decreased the likelihood of burnout among employees of the company under study, including a breakdown by three components of burnout. Organizational factors such as fair remuneration, adequate workload, the ability to rely on coworkers for help, and intensive communication were among the factors that reduced overall burnout. Individual factors such as low status in the management hierarchy (workers and specialists) and men with minor children have proven to reduce emotional exhaustion. The scientific value of the study lies in drawing attention to the factors of burnout at work as one of the manifestations of the state and behavior of an employee in an industrial company, which is still very rarely an empirical object of research.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):7–39
7–39
Neuroticization of immaterial workers in post-fordist economy: a comparative analysis of the precariat and the salariat
Abstract
In this paper authors attempt to analyse the demonstration of a specific phenomenon — neuroticization — arising among workers of immaterial labour under conditions of post-fordist economy. Neuroticization is a condition in which the subject has negative psychological manifestations such as depression and anxiety, with a parallel constant desire to improve their own skills, high rationalisation of personal life and planning of their time. The focus on this type of worker stems from the fact that they possess a high degree of autonomy and flexible working hours, but also face burdensome responsibility and stress, which can lead to negative consequences for their mental health and social life. This study examines the demonstration of neuroticization among two socio-economic groups of workers: the precariat and the salariat, differing in terms of workplace stability. Data collection consisted of 15 in-depth interviews with representatives of Russian companies and self-employed workers, as well as distribution of the survey among 806 residents for further analysis using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Key psychological states identified include personality erosion, demoralization, generalized depression and anxiety, and rationalization, to which the two groups of workers are affected to varying degrees. The most striking difference is observed in the manifestation of anxiety and depression: stable workers have significantly lower levels of these, while the precariat experience greater negative psychological problems. We also identified that some workers tend to overcome neuroticization in future, as the majority of workers reported that career was not a priority for them in the long run.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):40–68
40–68
Sociology of Health
Loneliness and health problems: the impact of socio-economic context and culture
Abstract
The study examines the relationship between loneliness and of health and analyzes the societal conditions that influence its strength. Scientific literature shows that the feeling of loneliness is associated with stressful effects on the organism, which negatively affect health. At the same time, the question of what factors of the social context can enhance this effect of loneliness on health remains poorly understood. In order to clarify it, a two-level linear modeling was performed using survey data from the International Social Research Program (ISSP 2017), which includes 29 countries from various regions of the world, including Russia, as well as comparative statistics and analytics on the socio-economic development of these countries, their culture and demographic structure. The results show that loneliness is indeed negatively associated with self-rated health, and this relationship is more pronounced in some countries than in others. The societal conditions contributing to its strength include the level of economic and social development of countries, their culture and age structure. With increasing well-being and social security, people's assessments of their health increase, and this increase is less noticeable among those who feel lonely, as a result of which socio-economic development leads to a more pronounced impact of loneliness on health. It turned out to be more pronounced in countries with a higher proportion of the elderly population. With a similar economic development, the negative impact of loneliness on self-rated health of individuals was more noticeable in collectivist societies than in individualist ones.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):69–92
69–92
Sociology of Aging
The culture of aging in the focus of everyday practices of representatives of the “third age”
Abstract
The article reconsiders the cultural meaning of old age and the aging process. The article is based on the results of a survey of people of retirement age in the Rostov region, conducted in 2023 using time diaries. It has been revealed that modern Russians aged 60+ demonstrate fundamentally different personal experiences of aging, which is statistically expressed in the gap between the average indicators for each type of activity and individual time allocation models. This forced the construction of not one, but two polar chronometric models of the everyday life of Russians over 60 years old, to which the majority of them may gravitate.
The concept of “culture of aging” was introduced, defined as a system of the best examples and methods of activity of people aged 60+, aimed at their adaptation to changes determined not only by age, but also by health, place and living conditions. An analysis of the time diaries of people of retirement age in the Rostov region collected in 2023 made it possible to identify and describe significant features and transformations in their aging culture. It has been recorded that general satisfaction with the skills of distributing one’s time between various activities is accompanied by the need for more active ways of spending time of their life, which cannot be realized for a number of reasons. The author comes to the conclusion that the culture of aging does not develop in isolation from the general culture of the population, from the culture of other age communities. The culture of aging is the most important system-forming element of the culture of society as a whole, largely representing and at the same time determining its qualitative characteristics.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):93–122
93–122
Sociology of Youth
Ambivalence in young people's gender worldview: research from 1996 to 2023
Abstract
The article examines the transformation of the contradictory youth gender worldview, which contains features of both traditional and modern egalitarian views on men’s and women’s positions in the family and in society. The empirical base of research consists of studies done by the author in 1996, 2007, 2014 and 2023. Each model’s structure is represented by three levels — gender ideals, general dispositions and situational attitudes. Research results show that these structural levels change heterochronically, but consistently. An analysis of group and individual contradictory gender consciousness is carried out. The article proves that there is no polarization of opinions held by different groups of young people about gender equality in families and in society. Ambivalence as a characteristic of youth gender worldview is examined. The contradiction of individual gender consciousness is reflected in syndromes of different degrees of incompatibility — in ambivalent and quasi-ambivalent ideas about gender views. An approach of studying and measuring ambivalence on different levels of gender worldviews is proposed. It’s established that the 1996–2014 observation period saw a gradual increase in the number of those who hold ambivalent gender and family views. By 2023 a new transformation trend is identified in regards to general dispositions and especially situational attitudes. There is a sharp drop of those who hold contradictory views and a simultaneous increase of the number of people who support gender equality in the family and in society. All this suggests that the examined period is a transitional stage of ambivalent gender consciousness.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):123–148
123–148
Sociology of Migration
National identity components as predictors of anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe: an analysis based on ISSP data
Abstract
This paper examines how components of national identity are related to anti-immigrant attitudes in European countries at the individual level. The research literature on anti-immigrant attitudes was divided into material and symbolic explanations of group threats perception. In the formation of perceived material threats the role of subjective socio-economic status, professional qualification and education, and labor market protection was considered. Within the framework of the symbolic threat theory, national identity was presented, which was conceptually analyzed through the civic-ethnic dichotomy and by the comparative criterion of national pride. Based on the theoretical framework, hypotheses were put forward and tested on three waves of survey data from 20 European countries (total sample size N=30746) of the International Social Studies Program (ISSP 1995-2003-2013). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was performed to construct predictors, resulting in the identification of four national identity components. The dependent variable “anti-immigrant attitudes” was constructed in the same way. The main method of analysis was multi-group structural equation modeling. In all three waves, political patriotism, economic security and respondents' education level were negatively related to anti-immigrant attitudes. Ethnic and blind nationalism showed a positive correlation with the target variable. Cultural patriotism showed a positive correlation with the dependent variable for 1995 and 2003 and statistical insignificance for 2013. Metric invariance was established, indicating intergroup validity of the results over time. National identity components showed greater explanatory potential compared to respondents' socio-economic characteristics, providing evidence in support of the symbolic threat theory.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):149–178
149–178
Cognitive Sociology
Cognitive biases in cyber fraud practices: the heuristic potential of M. Norton's theory
Abstract
The concept of cognitive biases, introduced in 1972 by D. Kahneman and A. Tversky and identifying the cause of erroneous decisions in human economic behavior, has become one of the explanatory models in describing the practices of modern cyber fraud. However, the growing scale and negative consequences of cyber fraud actualize the need to expand the interpretations of this phenomenon in the context of various disciplines, primarily sociology, which allows us to overcome the narrowly individual approach that links cognitive distortions only with the mental characteristics of human thinking and to set the vector of analysis of their socio-cultural determination. The article examines the heuristic prospects of using the concepts of cognitive sociology (in particular, M. Norton’s theory) as an interpretative model for the analysis of cognitive distortions in cyber fraud practices. This approach allows us to give a broad interpretation of this phenomenon as a necessary attribute of the general process of socio-cultural semiosis, to explain the manipulative nature of specific semiotic contours that determine the choice of a certain type of human action and the activation of specific cognitive distortions, to understand how certain cognitive distortions influence such a choice in a situation of cyber fraud, to show the conjugation of cognitive mechanisms and the socio-cultural environment in the process of forming networks of meanings in the “semiosis of cyber fraud”. The theoretical provisions of Norton's concept are examined using specific examples of such cognitive distortions as the authority effect, the trust effect, and the confirmation bias.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):179–201
179–201
Urban Studies
In search of the language of legitimation: framing the value of contested city objects in Nizhny Novgorod
Abstract
The paper inspired by the ‘cultural turn’ in social movement studies seeks to comprehend the role of value orientations and discursive practices in grassroots activism, and analyzes the logics and rhetorical tools that urban activists and their opponents use to legitimize their positions in conflicts around city objects. It also studies how conflict participants construct (or reject and dismiss) the value of these contested objects. L. Boltanski’s and L. Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology and, in particular, their classification of ‘orders of worth’ serves as the theoretical framework of the research. Empirically, the paper focuses on two cases from Nizhny Novgorod where the urbanites attempted to protect city parks: Avtozavodskiy park of culture and recreation, and park ‘Switzerland’. A characteristic feature of the cases is that both parks are not only public greenspaces, but also formally recognized cultural heritage sites, which makes it possible to expect a wide-ranging repertoire of legitimation tools both from the proponents and the opponents of the transformations of these city territories. Relying on a collection of semi-structured interviews with conflict participants as well as publications in social media and regional news outlets, the author applies SKAD to reveal how the actors articulated the value of parks (or the lack of such), and what orders of worth they resorted to in their narratives. The analysis reveals the shaping of the discursive repertoires of justification specific for different parties to urban conflicts, and demonstrates the controversial role of the green worth in these repertoires.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):202–237
202–237
Graffiti as a tool of urban environment appropriation: a study of spatial practices
Abstract
The relevance of this research lies in the fact that graffiti has consistently existed and continues to exist within a legally ambiguous or outright illegal context. Consequently, there is a need to manage and regulate public spaces within cities. It is important to note that graffiti today can be created for various reasons, including personal messages (such as love letters), commercial purposes (advertisements), or as expressions of the graffiti subculture, encompassing forms like “tags”, “bombing”, “writing”, and “murals”. In all these cases, graffiti aims to communicate with an intended audience. This raises the question of who that audience is and, consequently, what limitations, if any, should be placed on it. In other words, the central question is the extent to which the spaces chosen for graffiti application are truly public. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics of graffiti's spatial distribution within the urban environment. This article proposes using the concept of symbolic urban space construction to analyze this spatial localization. Following this approach, the research employs methods such as observation and mapping of graffiti. Using data collected from four administrative districts of Moscow (2241 instances of graffiti recorded in February 2022), we analyzed both the content of the graffiti and their locations. The results characterize the relationship between graffiti's placement and the issue of its perceived excessive public visibility. While many contemporary graffiti works extend beyond the boundaries of purely subcultural expression, they are often applied in spaces less frequented by the general public. This contrasts with simpler subcultural drawings and inscriptions, which are more commonly found in spaces already actively used and appropriated by the urban community.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):238–272
238–272
News / Information
Conference “Anthropology of St. Petersburg: The City. The academy. Three centuries of life”
Abstract
On May 14, 2024, the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the All-Russian scientific conference with international participation “Anthropology of St. Petersburg: City. Academy. Three Centuries of Life” dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The conference was organized by the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The conference focused on scientific research in anthropology and sociology of St. Petersburg conducted in these academic institutions.
The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2024;27(4):273–277
273–277