The actual view of Russian and German students on innovations, economic growth and welfare

Abstract

© Medwell Journals, 2016.The relevance of the investigated problem lies in the increasing role of innovation as a factor of welfare growth and sustainability of socio-economic development in each country. The purpose of the study is to describe the current state of significant economic and social concepts in the associative respect. The leading method used in the study of this problem was an associative experiment in order to reveal free associations to the concepts of "innovation", "growth" and "welfare"of Russian and German students. This article introduces and discusses the results of the conducted cross-cultural associative experiment. The "innovation", "economic growth" and "welfare" concepts have a wide range of associations given by the respondents. Within the associative field there are core associations, typical for 22.5-56.5% of the respondents and the side associations (from 64-70 of lexical units). The study makes a contribution to studying language and mental representations of economic and social concepts and can be useful for teaching sociology, cultural science and concept studies.