Attitude of Russians to Economic Inequality: Substantiation of Economic-Psychological Experiment

Abstract

Nowadays Russian society is experiencing changes in attitudes towards various social phenomena and processes, among which the attitude towards economic inequality takes a special place. The consideration of the social-psychological aspects of the attitude to economic inequality in the scientific literature is insufficiently reflected. The study of the peculiarities of attitudes towards inequality will make it possible to clarify public attitudes and attitudes necessary for further social and economic reforms. In addition, traditional research methods do not always reflect representative characteristics of the population's attitude to various social problems, so there is a need to develop a more relevant method (economic-psychological experiment) to identify personal aspects of respondents' economic behavior. The aim was to study the features of the Russian population’s attitude to economic inequality in society by the economic-psychological experiment and substantiating this method as promising for studying attitudes towards social and economic phenomena. Focus groups, which included group interviews and discussions on problems of inequality; a survey aimed at examining attitudes towards inequality and behavior in relation to charity; an economic and psychological experiment (quasi-experiment), in the framework of which situations were simulated for respondents to make economic decisions (choosing a society for a hypothetical grandson). Russian respondents equally want to live both in a risk unequal society, to get higher incomes, and in a society with fixed average incomes. Most Russians are not ready to give up part of their income in order to help those who live worse. The attitude to inequality (the preference of equal and unequal societies) among Russian respondents does not change in any simulated economic conditions. The results obtained using the economic-psychological experiment represent original aspects of respondents' attitudes towards economic inequality in comparison with survey and testing methods.