.jpg)
printSubjective wellbeing and the national pride of Russians:
causal analysis
Zubarev N.S.,
HSE University, Moscow, Russia, nzubarev@hse.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-2214-4457 | RESEARCHER_ID: AAH-7936-2021Moreva Iu.E.,
HSE University, Moscow, Russia, yuli-more@hotmail.com
elibrary_id: 1067433 | ORCID: 0000-0002-3005-6991 |
Ponarin E.D.,
HSE University, Moscow, Russia, eponarin@hse.ru
elibrary_id: 187943 | ORCID: 0000-0002-8568-5840 | RESEARCHER_ID: L-9297-2015
Article received: 2024.02.16 11:40. Accepted: 2024.05.06 11:40
DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.04.05
EDN: VSBANE
For citation:
Zubarev N.S., Moreva Iu.E., Ponarin E.D. Subjective wellbeing and the national pride of Russians: causal analysis. – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.04.05. EDN: VSBANE (In Russ.)
The article was prepared within the framework of the HSE University Basic Research Program.
Abstract
Happiness in Russia recovered rapidly along with economic growth between 1999–2008 after a sharp decline in the 1990s. Surprisingly, however, the economic stagnation that followed did not prevent further growth in happiness levels, which reached a historic peak by the end of 2017. Using data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study for the period 1999-2017, we have previously showed that 1) national pride, which began to rise in the 2000s, is strongly correlated with happiness; 2) national pride, as opposed to material well-being, became an increasingly important predictor of happiness after 2008, especially for the poorer segments of the population; and 3) instrumental variables tests suggest that it is national pride that drives the long-term increase in happiness, rather than the other way around. However, a definitive judgment on the direction of causality requires a longitudinal data. After 2017, Russia experienced difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. This article clarifies the nature of the correlation between national pride and happiness in this complicated context. We apply the method of seemingly unrelated regression equations to three waves of panel data collected in 2019-2022. The results of our study indicate that there is a statistically significant stable relationship between national pride and happiness and that it is an increase in the level of subjective well-being that is leading to a higher level of national pride and not vice versa. We conclude that subjective well-being has a positive impact on the national pride of Russians. However, when interpreting these results, one should be cautious and consider that the crisis context of data collection could have affected the direction of the relationship between the variables: in the absence of tension in the socio-economic structure of society, this relationship could have the opposite direction.
Keywords
subjective well-being, happiness, life satisfaction, national pride, seemingly unrelated regressions, panel data, Russians.
References
Achen, C.H., & Bartels, L.M. (2017). Democracy for Realists: why elections do not produce responsive government. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc7770q
Bieda, A., Hirschfeld, G., Schönfeld, P., Brailovskaia, J., Zhang, X.C., & Margraf, J. (2017). Universal happiness? Cross-cultural measurement invariance of scales assessing positive mental health. Psychological Assessment, 29(4), 408-421. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000353
Biswas-Diener, R., Vittersø, J., & Diener, E. (2010). The Danish effect: beginning to explain high well-being in Denmark. Social Indicators Research, 97(2), 229-246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9499-5
Boyce, C.J., Delaney, L., & Wood, A.M. (2018). The Great Recession and subjective well-being: how did the life satisfaction of people living in the United Kingdom change following the financial crisis? PLoS ONE, 13(8), e0201215. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201215
Carr, D., Freedman, V.A., Cornman, J.C., & Schwarz, N. (2014). Happy marriage, happy life? Marital quality and subjective well-being in later life. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76(5), 930-948. https://doi. org/10.1111/jomf.12133
Charles, A., Wu, D., & Wu, Z. (2019). Economic shocks on subjective well-being: re-assessing the determinants of life-satisfaction after the 2008 financial crisis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(4), 1041-1055. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9986-y
Chung, K., & Choe, H. (2008). South Korean national pride: determinants, changes, and suggestions. Asian Perspective, 32(1), 99-127. https://doi.org/10.1353/apr.2008.0032
Cohen, J. (2008). What I watch and who I am: national pride and the viewing of local and foreign television in Israel. Journal of Communication, 58(1), 149-167. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00378.x
De Vries, R.E. (2003). Self, in-group, and out-group evaluation: bond or breach? European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(5), 609-621. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.173
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Tay, L. (2018). Advances in subjective well-being research. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(4), 253-260. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0307-6
Diener, E., & Ryan, K. (2009). Subjective well-being: a general overview. South African Journal of Psychology, 39(4), 391-406. https://doi.org/10.1177/008124630903900402
Evans, M.D.R., & Kelley, J. (2002). National pride in the developed world: survey data from 24 nations.
International Journal for Public Opinion Research, 14(3), 303-338. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/14.3.303Fabrykant, M., & Magun, V. (2019). Dynamics of national pride attitudes in post-Soviet Russia, 1996-2015. Nationalities Papers, 47(1), 20-37. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2018.18
Foa, R.S., Inglehart, R., Ponarin, E., & Karabchuk, T. (2018). Set-point theory and societal collapse: the case of Russia. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(6), 1639-1656. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9888-4
Fujita, F. (2008). The frequency of social comparison and its relation to subjective well-being. In M. Eid, & R.J. Larsen (Ed.), The Science of Subjective Well-Being (pp. 239-257). New York: The Guilford Press.
George, L.K., & Landerman, R. (1984). Health and subjective well-being: a replicated secondary data analysis. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 19(2), 133-156. https://doi.org/10.2190/FHHT-25R8-F8KT-MAJD
Greene, W.H. (2012). Econometric analysis (7th ed.). Hoboken: Pearson Education Limited; Prentice-Hall.
Gudmundsdottir, D.G. (2013). The impact of economic crisis on happiness. Social Indicators Research, 110(3), 1083-1101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9973-8
Ha, S.E., & Jang S.-J. (2015). National identity, national pride, and happiness: the case of South Korea. Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 121(2), 471-482. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0641-7
Haring-Hidore, M., Stock, W.A., Okun, M.A., & Witter, R.A. (1985). Marital status and subjective wellbeing: a research synthesis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 47(4), 947-953. https://doi.org/10.2307/352338
Henningsen, A., & Hamann, J.D. (2008). systemfit: a package for estimating systems of simultaneous equations in R. Journal of Statistical Software, 23(4), 1-40. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v023.i04
Hogg, M.A. (2000). Subjective uncertainty reduction through self-categorization: a motivational theory of social identity processes. European Review of Social Psychology, 11(1), 223-255. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792772043000040
Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A.B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(1), 3-24. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533006776526030
Krueger, R.F., Hicks, B.M., & McGue, M. (2001). Altruism and antisocial behavior: independent tendencies, unique personality correlates, distinct etiologies. Psychological Science, 12(5), 397-402. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00373
Liberini, F., Redoano, M., & Proto, E. (2017). Happy voters. Journal of Public Economics, 146, 41-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.11.013
Liker, J.K., Augustyniak, S., & Duncan, G.J. (1985). Panel data and models of change: a comparison of first difference and conventional two-wave models. Social Science Research, 14(1), 80-101. https://doi.org/10.1016/0049-089X(85)90013-4
Lim, S., & Prakash, A. (2021). Pandemics and citizen perceptions about their country: Did COVID-19 increase national pride in South Korea? Nations and Nationalism, 27(3), 623-637. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12749
Lorenzini, J. (2015). Subjective well-being and political participation: a comparison of unemployed and employed youth. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(2), 381-404. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9514-7
Macintyre, A.J. (2015). An empirical examination of the consequences of national pride: Analyses of survey and experimental data. PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. QUT ePrints. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/86692/
Miller, T.B., & Kane, M. (2001). The precision of change scores under absolute and relative interpretations. Applied Measurement in Education, 14(4), 307-327. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15324818AME1404_1
Morrison, M., Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Subjective well-being and national satisfaction: findings from a worldwide survey. Psychological Science, 22(2), 166-171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610396224
Müller-Peters, A. (1998). The significance of national pride and national identity to the attitude toward the single European currency: a Europe-wide comparison. Journal of Economic Psychology, 19(6), 701-719. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-4870(98)00033-6
Norris, P. (1999). Introduction: the growth of critical Citizens? In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government (pp. 1-28). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0198295685.003.0001
Okun, M.A., Stock, W.A., Haring, M.J., & Witter, R.A. (1984). Health and subjective well-being: a meta-analysis. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 19(2), 111-132. https://doi.org/10.2190/QGJN-0N81-5957-HAQD
Ponarin, E., & Komin, M. (2018). The Russian elite’s imperial nationalism and the Russian society: the emergence of a grand consensus. Sociology Compass, 12(12), e12641. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12641
R Core Team. (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Software. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.r-project.org/
Ray, S. (2018). Ethnic inequality and national pride. Political Psychology, 39(2), 263-280. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12406
Reeskens, T., & Wright, M. (2011). Subjective well-being and national satisfaction: taking seriously the “proud of what?” question. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1460-1462. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611419673
Sirotkina, E., & Zavadskaya, M. (2020). When the party’s over: political blame attribution under an electoral authoritarian regime. Post-Soviet Affairs, 36(1), 37-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2019.1639386
Smith, T.W., & Jarkko, L. (1998). National pride: a cross-national analysis. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.
Smith, T.W., & Kim, S. (2006). National pride in comparative perspective: 1995/96 and 2003/04. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 18(1), 127-136. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edk007
Solt, F. (2011). Diversionary nationalism: economic inequality and the formation of national pride. The Journal of Politics, 73(3), 821-830. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002238161100048X
Steele, L.G., & Lynch, S.M. (2013). The pursuit of happiness in China: individualism, collectivism, and subjective well-being during China’s economic and social transformation. Social Indicators Research, 114(2), 441-451. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0154-1
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J.C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel, & W.G. Austin (Ed.), Psychology of Intergroup Relation (pp. 7-24). Chicago: Hall Publishers.
Tilley, J., & Heath, A. (2007). The decline of British national pride. The British Journal of Sociology, 58(4), 661-678. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00170.x
Tov, W., & Diener, E. (2008). The well-being of nations: linking together trust, cooperation, and democracy. In B.A. Sullivan, M. Snyder, & J.L. Sullivan (Eds.), Cooperation: The Political Psychology of Effective Human Interaction (pp. 323-342). Maiden: Blackwell Publishing.
Zellner, A. (1962). An efficient method of estimating seemingly unrelated regressions and tests for aggregation bias. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 57 (298), 348-368. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1962.10480664
Almakaeva, A.M., & Gashenina, N.V. (2020). Subjective well-being: conceptualization, assessment and Russian specifics. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes, 1, 4-13. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2020.1.01.
Byzov, L.G. (2018). Ideynye rubezhi “postkrymskogo konsensusa” [Ideological frontiers of the “post-Crimea consensus”] In V.V. Fedorov (Ed.), Vybory na fone Kryma: Elektoral’nyy tsikl 2016-2018 gg. i perspektivy politicheskogo tranzita [Elections against the Backdrop of Crimea: Electoral Cycle 2016-2018 and Prospects for Political Transit] (pp. 102-146). Moscow: VCIOM. (In Russ.)
Kamalov, E.A., & Ponarin, E.D. (2020) National pride and subjective well-being of Russians. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes, 1, 177-205. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2020.1.08
Korsunova, V.I., & Sokolov, B.O. (2023). Support for emancipatory values in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sociological Journal, 29(2), 8-24. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2023.29.2.1
Soboleva, N.E., & Sokolov, B.O. (2021). Changes in labor market status during the COVID-19 pandemic and subjective well-being of Russians. Voprosy Ekonomiki (Economic Questions), 12, 139-153. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.32609/00
Sokolov, B.O., & Zavadskaya, M.A. (2023). Individual experience of the first wave of the COVID-19 42-8736-2021-12-139-153 pandemic and political support in Russia: evidence from the Values in Crisis survey. Polis. Political Studies, 4, 152-167. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2023.04.11
Tishkov V.A. (2000). The Nation is a Metaphor. Druzhba narodov, 7, 170-182.
Content No. 4, 2024
See also:
Terin D.F.,
Political Trust, Satisfaction and Perceptions of the Causes of Poverty: the Role of the Normative Aspects of Institutions in the Production of Trust. – Polis. Political Studies. 2020. No3
Ponamaryova A.M., Tatuntz S.A.,
Immigration as problem of national security of the RF. – Polis. Political Studies. 2010. No4
,
Mirage of democracy. – Polis. Political Studies. 2014. No6
Denisov Yu.P.,
Why Russians Don't Accept the Golden Mean, or On Temperance in Politics. – Polis. Political Studies. 1996. No1
Samarkina I.V., Miroshnichenko I.V., Borisko O.A.,
The subjective space of youth policy: theoretical model and regional projections (the case of the Krasnodar territory). – Polis. Political Studies. 2022. No5
.jpg)
.jpg)