Social beliefs and convictions of Russian military service men: Conscripts and contract soldiers

Abstract

© 2019 Tomsk State University. All rights reserved. The article solves two goals, an applied and a scientific. The first goal is to identify common points and differences in the social beliefs of two groups of Russian military service men: conscripts and contract soldiers. It is important, because they are in constant interaction with each other. The second goal is to test the assumption that there is a connection between the social beliefs of the individual and his personality traits measured within the "Big Five" model. During our research we used the following methods: the scale of social beliefs (J. Duckitt), the scale of belief in a just world BJWS (K. Dalbert), the questionnaire of basic beliefs WAS (R. Janoff-Bulman), the questionnaire "social axioms" SAS (M. Bond and K. Leung), the personal questionnaire NEO PI (R. McCrae and P. Costa), life orientation test LOT (M. Scheier and Ch. Carver) and the life satisfaction scale SWLS (E. Diener). The sample of the study was 207 conscripts and 219 contract soldiers. All subjects were men between from 18 to 43, on average contract soldiers are 7 years older. The main results of the study can be combined into three groups. Firstly, we have found a clear predominance of positive beliefs (belief in the just organization of the world, its security, the benevolence of people, belief in its ability to control life, the positive image of the "I", etc.) in both groups of serviceman. At the same time, they are particularly positive for contract service men with a higher life satisfaction index. Secondly, we defined a two-factor structure of the social beliefs (convictions) of military service men, explaining more than half of the total aggregate variance of traits (exploratory factorial analysis was used). The first and most powerful factor combines the majority of parameters in the continuum from positive to negative perception of the world. The second factor includes only a few variables, and its essence, from our point of view, lies in the opposite of rational and romantic approach to the perception of the world. Thirdly, we established the connection of social beliefs with the personality traits of the "Big Five". Particularly closely related to the latter are the so-called "basic beliefs," and less related are the "social axioms". The presence of such links indicates that the "features" and "beliefs" are connected in the mental world of a man. That is, the presence of certain personality traits in him contributes to the formation of very specific social beliefs.