Economic stereotypes of Russian families through the prism of proverbs and sayings

Abstract

Stereotypes and prejudices can influence our views and decisions in various spheres of life, including the economy. The author addresses the most important social group – the family and examines the features of the economic behavior of all its members in comparison with the models and patterns of behavior described in Russian proverbs and sayings. The family, both nuclear and extended, is the main object of research. Being the foundation of the state, the family remains the most important source of information for understanding the economic and financial culture of the population, the conditions for its formation and identifying strong points for further development. Sociological content analysis is chosen as the main method of analysis. The article is written at the intersection of sociological, linguistic, historical and philosophical sciences. The scientific novelty of the presented research is both the problematic topic itself, which was not previously presented in the scientific field, and the unification of three time modes during the author's analysis: past, present and future. During the content analysis, the author identified five thematic groups of proverbs and sayings that have semantic references to finance, attitude to money and economic roles in the family. Each of the groups is accompanied by up-to-date data from secondary sociological research and statistics in order to compare, highlight common and different in the economic life of Russian families over the past centuries. The focus of the research is focused on analyzing the dynamics of changes in the attitude of members of the Russian family to finance and the strength of the influence of economic stereotypes on families of the XXI century, expressed through specific linguistic forms. The conclusions of this research are of interest to a wide range of readers whose professional or social interests include economic sociology, demography, Russian history and historical linguistics, as well as population issues.