Relationship between Values and Economic Attitudes in Russian Students: Interconfessional Analysis

This study focuses on value orientations in representatives of two confessions, Christianity (Orthodoxy) and Islam (Sunnism), and explores the role of individual values in economic attitudes and conceptions. The aim of this work was to reveal the relationship between culture values and economic attitudes and notions of Russian students, representatives of the two confessions. Our hypothesis was that this relationship is different in Christian and Muslim students. The study was conducted through a social psychological inquiry and involved students of Moscow and Kazan universities, of both secular and theological departments. The sample consisted of 217 persons, of whom 113 were Orthodox Christians and 104 Sunnites, with the average age of 19 years. The outcomes of the study proved that interconfessional differences in individual values really exist. The significance of the 'Conformity' and 'Tradition' values was much greater in the Muslim students, whereas the Christian students displayed a greater importance of the 'Hedonism' value. Interconfessional differences in the relationship between values and economic attitudes and notions were also present. At the same time, it was revealed that the values of 'Self-dependence' and 'Achievement' correlated with productive economic attitudes and notions regardless of the individuals' confession.

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