THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONAL VALUES OF CIVIL AND MILITARY SPECIALISTS IN THE MODERN PERIOD OF DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN SOCIETY

Noss I.N.¹, Bulgakov A.V.², Bulgakova E.A.³

Noss I.N.

Russian State University for the Humanities
e-mail: i.noss@yandex.ru

Bulgakov A.V.

Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia named after V. Ya. Kikot
e-mail: r.av_bulgakow@mail.ru

Bulgakova E.A.

State University of Education
e-mail: ea-bulgakowa@yandex.ru

 

Introduction. Relevance. Statement of the Problem

In Russia today, issues related to the functioning of civil society, its potential, and its actual role in Russia's renewal are being actively discussed. However, this debate has not yet led to a complete understanding and interpretation of this multifaceted, complex, and internally contradictory phenomenon. Various social spheres exist in reality as ideal entities and manifest themselves as aggregates of specific interests and behaviors, interactions between individuals and their groups—that is, as objective realities.

One of the most significant areas of interaction between civil society and the state is the military sphere, which encompasses a relatively independent and exceptionally important area of human activity. People's interests in this sphere are typically linked to war. These interests manifest themselves in the preparation and use of armed violence to achieve political, economic, and ideological goals.

The objective role and subjective perception of the military sphere often differ. Individuals and groups develop their own distinct attitudes toward the goals, methods, and products of military activity. Furthermore, the general population's involvement in military affairs, whether as active or passive participants, is not constant and can fluctuate depending on many factors. However, the key point is that no one is indifferent to the military sphere, a fact conditioned by the military's objective content, its role, and its place in society.

The population's attitude toward the army and military activity, as well as its readiness to fulfill military duty, are linked to the spiritual life of society, culture, and science. Therefore, military personnel do not represent a self-sufficient, completely autonomous structure of society. On the one hand, social, national, and demographic differentiation affects the composition of military contingents, relationships, cohesion, and combat coordination within military units. On the other hand, military service becomes a factor in social mobility and interethnic communication among the population.

Civil society cannot be indifferent to the military provision of national security. However, due to its antinomies, its orientation varies widely: from outspoken support for military policy to categorical rejection of any military-political activity.

Due to the unique nature of military work and everyday life, military personnel constitute a relatively coherent community with its own interests, value system, forms of communication, and norms of behavior—a distinct social group. However, by refracting the economic, political, and spiritual characteristics of society, the army reproduces them in a specific form, forming a unique mold or replica of society, which, in its organizational principles, forms of life, value systems, and norms, is not identical to society itself. "In ordinary political life, which inevitably presupposes various compromises, there is less room for such traditional military moral values as devotion to duty, loyalty to leadership, and concern for subordinates. ... Society must recognize this and understand that this is precisely the reason why we do not desire complete unity between the army and society" [14].

Thus: a) military personnel (members of their families, employees of the military-industrial complex, military pensioners, Cossacks, employees of other security agencies) make up the majority of the population; b) the role of the military in the life of society is much higher than their specific weight in the structure of the country's population; c) due to the specific nature of their work, they develop specific orientations and preferences that have a pro-state, "defense" orientation; d) compared to other segments of the population, they are distinguished by better organization [2].

The Armed Forces are experiencing all the problems of a socio-economic and socio-political nature that Russia has been experiencing in recent decades: a) the social structure of the Armed Forces currently does not correspond to the composition of the population; b) there is a decline in the physical characteristics of conscripts; c) there is a low motivation of young people to serve in the Armed Forces [3].

It is well known that the most important component of military personnel's personal development is the set of ideals and social values they are called upon to uphold. The process of transforming the value orientations of Russian society has also affected the value orientations of military personnel [13, p. 325]. The problem of developing a serviceman's value system is due to the sharp contradiction between the influence of the military environment and the everyday environment in which the serviceman spends his free time [8, p. 60].

The values of military personnel operate in the sphere of statehood, democracy, morality and ethics.

Ideals and values in the sphere of statehood: love for the Motherland and one's people; loyalty to the Constitution and the law; sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and its allies; economic, social, political and spiritual interests of the people, their freedom and independence; vital foreign policy and foreign economic interests of Russia.

Values in the sphere of democracy: the indisputable dignity of the individual; equality of all people before the law; the inalienable real right to justice and happiness; the implementation of social and legal protection for all citizens of the country.

Values in the sphere of morality and ethics: fidelity to the oath of civic and military duty; friendship, military camaraderie, combat partnership; respect for the honor and dignity of a citizen soldier; respect for one’s own national culture; respect for the culture of other peoples, their national identity; following one’s own conscience; respect for seniors in rank and age; admiration for women; careful attitude to the customs and traditions of one’s ancestors, national history [7].

These values in the military environment are transformed into: military-corporate (cadets and officers who come from military families or who graduated from the Suvorov or Nakhimov military schools), military-professional (engineering and technical specialists), material-everyday (a special social type, in which the orientation towards obtaining material benefits from military service prevails), specifically pragmatic (avoid unemployment, obtain or develop skills in the required specialty) and cognitive-developmental (young military personnel of all categories) [7].

It should be noted that many military personnel, like a significant portion of the civilian population, have developed a need for a leader who would realize their hopes for a successful economic recovery in Russia and the revival of the glory and prestige of the army and navy.

 

Methodology

Despite the fact that the ideals and values of civilians and military personnel are comparable, and the army is a reflection of society, the specific and situational circumstances of their existence differ significantly. This should likely be reflected in the modern structure of value orientations and ideals and, ultimately, in the behavior and activity of military and civilian youth.

The aim of our study was to compare social, state, moral and ethical, subject-activity and personal values of young people from civilian and military educational institutions.

The values formulated in the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation [9] were chosen as incentives, as well as some opposite «Western» liberal values [1], which were presented in the form of «key» phraseological units in a mixed order.

The group "social and state values": Labor; Service to the Fatherland; Traditional family; Respect for elders; Unity of peoples; Rights; Life.

The group "moral and ethical values": Dignity; Morality; Mutual assistance, mercy; Justice.

The group "ethnocentric and egoistic values": One's own nation, people; One's own path; Personal interests; Caring for oneself.

The "liberal values" group: Absolute freedom; Wealth; Enterprise; Free relations; Power; I am a citizen of the world; Idleness.

Respondents expressed their attitudes towards value incentives at three levels: direct relationship at the verbal level, emotional attitude by means of the color choice test (CCT) [11] and the attitude towards reproductions correlated with verbal stimuli using the semantic differential [15; 10], as well as by means of the attitude towards relevant symbols [12]. This technology was tested in 2022 [5] and 2023 [4]. That is, the study of the structure of positional values was carried out at the subject-content (conscious), emotional-semantic (partially conscious) and associative-semantic (unconscious) levels of perception and understanding by respondents.

Future psychologists from military and civilian universities in their second and third years of full-time study were recruited as respondents in March–May 2024. The military university included 31 cadets, of whom 771 were women aged 21.1 (+2.24) years. Civilian university - 33 students, of which 91% are women aged 20.5(+2.0) years. The experimental samples were considered homogeneous in terms of gender, age, social status, and type of professionalization.

 

Results and discussion

At the preparatory stage for the experiment, at the stage of selecting signs-symbols relevant to the stimulus-values, differences in perception and semantic relationships were discovered between cadets of a military university and students of a civilian educational institution. The choice of signs and symbols from 80 pre-selected by experts (90 people) symbols-signs from the encyclopedia of signs and symbols (O'Connell & Airey, 2008). The coincidence of the dominant choice of signs-symbols corresponding to the stimulus values was 36.4% (8 out of 22). These are social values: Service to the Fatherland; Unity of Nations and Life. Moral and ethical values: Mutual assistance, mercy and Justice. Liberal values (or anti-values): Absolute freedom; Wealth and Idleness (Table 1). 

 

Table 1

 Selection of characters and symbols (character number / selection share)

This fact demonstrates that subjects perceive and understand the eight stimuli listed above in a manner consistent with their verbally expressed values. That is, the results of data consistency for them are quite consistent. The remaining values, however, are perceived differently. And their comparison at different levels varies.

As a result of the comparative experiment, a diagram of the relationships between the value-semantic constructs of cadets and students at three levels of their perception, understanding and semantic acceptance was obtained (Table 2).

Table 2

The relationship between respondents' perception, understanding and acceptance of meanings and values

№	Meanings-values	Subject-content perception		Emotional-semantic perception		Associative-semantic perception
		Cadets	Students	Cadets	Students	Cadets	Students
1	Work	0,26	0,31	5	4,00	21,5	21,1
2	One's own nation, people	0,13	0,09	5,55	4,79	32,5	33,3
3	Dignity	0,55	0,31	5,65	3,39	27,7	34,8
4	Own path	0,52	0,75	5,87	3,09	27,9	20,9
5	Rights	0,26	0,19	4,81	4,30	29,4	28,6
6	Absolute freedom	0,19	0,31	5,55	3,33	31,6	28,9
7	Service to the Fatherland	0,32	0,03	4,68	5,39	33,6	20,5
8	Personal interests	0,45	0,75	6,42	2,88	30,6	30,4
9	Moral	0,48	0,25	5,77	4,64	28,6	23,1
10	Taking care of yourself	0,48	0,69	6,39	3,00	38,9	38,0
11	Mutual assistance, mercy	0,35	0,81	4,9	3,76	29,3	31,7
12	Wealth	0,26	0,53	4,52	4,36	26,7	22,9
13	Traditional family	0,71	0,31	5,32	4,36	24,8	28,6
14	Enterprise	0,1	0,13	4,84	4,45	20,2	20,9
15	Justice	0,52	0,50	5,42	3,64	28,5	27,6
16	Open relationship	0,06	0,06	4,26	4,27	34,7	29,6
17	Respect for elders	0,16	0,03	5,74	4,97	19,8	24,4
18	Power	0,23	0,03	5	4,64	30,4	10,8
19	Unity of peoples	0,06	0,10	4,97	3,64	34,5	28,4
20	I am a citizen of the world	0,03	0,09	5,23	4,12	30,6	24,6
21	Life	0,77	0,75	6,35	2,88	35	32,6
22	Idleness	0,06	0,03	4,1	4,76	34,8	27,4
	Мх	0,3	0,3	5,3	4,0	29,6	26,8
	δх	0,2	0,3	0,7	0,7	4,9	6,0

 

The reliability of the study results was verified by calculating the cross-sectional reliability and data consistency using Cronbach's α (Schmitt, 1996) and showed a fairly good level (α=0.75). Correlation analysis confirmed that, in general, the ratio of perception, understanding, and acceptance of meanings and values by both students and cadets was almost identical (p<0.05) (Table 3).

Table 3

Correlation ratio of indicators of cadets and students

The method of selection and acceptance of values by respondents	Subject-content perception	Emotional-semantic perception	Associative-semantic perception
R valuexy	0,67	0,62	0,43

 

A detailed analysis of the obtained empirical data revealed some semantic features of the samples, which clarify the comparative picture of the semantic-value structure of the respondents’ consciousness.

It should be noted that from the stimulus series, only slightly more than half of the value stimuli were significantly different among respondents. Therefore, only the dominant ones (M) were analyzed._х+δ_х and more) and rearguard (M_х — δ_х and less) values

On subject-content The respondents' level of value acceptance shows a predominance of the following: a) for cadets – life, traditional family, dignity, personal path, and justice; b) for university students – mutual assistance and compassion, personal path, personal interests, life, and self-care. Thus, at a conscious level, students' semantic structure prioritizes ego-centric values.

Moreover, both cadets and students expressed rearguard positions in the following areas: idleness, I am a citizen of the world, entrepreneurship, and one's nation and people. Unlike cadets, students also held a rearguard position in the social and state value of service to the Fatherland, which occupied a moderately significant position in the cadets' value structure (Figure 1).

Fig. 1. Verbal choice: subject-content perception

 

On emotional-semantic The level of acceptance of values by respondents shows the dominance of: a) egocentric values (personal interests, self-care and life) among cadets; b) socio-state, dynastic, ethnocentric and optimistic-rosy values (respect for elders, one's own nation and people, idleness) among students. It should also be noted that on the emotional level: a) students express the value of "service to the Fatherland", while it is lowered among cadets; b) there is a discrepancy regarding the vital value of "life", which is expressed by cadets and is irrelevant among students; c) an increase in the importance of ethnocentric positions (one's own nation and people) among all respondents. (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Emotional choice: emotional-semantic perception

 

On associative-semantic The respondents' level of value acceptance shows a predominance of: a) cadets—concern for oneself, life, idleness, and free relationships; b) students—concern for oneself, dignity, one's nation and people, and life. That is, egocentric and vital values predominate at the associative level in the semantic structure of both cadets and students. Moreover, while cadets also exhibit idle-free tendencies, students exhibit ethical and ethnocentric tendencies (Figure 3).

Fig. 3. Associative choice: associative-semantic perception

 

Conclusions

Thus, the value-semantic structure of consciousness of military cadets and civilian university students is heterogeneous. However, based on the main parameters, there is a fairly acceptable consistent balance of values, as confirmed by the close statistically significant correlation between the indicators (p<0.05) (see table 3).

The results obtained generally confirm the validity of the theoretical proposition that the army is a "cast" or "snapshot" of society and bears its fundamental characteristics [2]. However, at the same time, one cannot ignore the observed discrepancies in the semantic patterns of the consciousness of cadets and students, thereby confirming the second theoretical idea [14] regarding only a partial, "selected" representation of the population's values in the consciousness of military personnel.

The pragmatism of psychological support requires a shift in focus to the second aspect, eliminating complacency in reflecting the characteristics of the whole (society) on its part (the army). Therefore, management activities must understand and take into account the specific value orientations of both young military personnel and students.

 

Literature

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References

1. Apukhtin, Yu. (2023). Russia and the West are incompatible: Why «European values» are absolutely incompatible with Russian ones. IA ROD "Renaissance. Golden Age"« URL: http://xn—-ctbsbazhbctieai.ru-an.info// (Accessed: 21.08.2023).
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4. Noss, IN, & Borodina, TI. (2023). Experimental testing of the methodology for studying personal meanings. Human Capital, 1(11), (179), 156–167.
5. Noss, IN, Bulygina, VG, & Pronicheva, MM. (2023). Methodology for studying value-meaning constructs of personality. In D. S. Adzhieva et al. (Eds.), Value-meaning and intellectual foundations of Russia's strategic development in the context of global challenges: Collective scientific monograph (VA Fadeev & T.A. Varkhotov, Eds.) (pp. 94–119). Moscow: Neptun.
6. O'Connell, M., & Airy, R. (2008). Signs and symbols: An illustrated encyclopedia (Trans. Krupicheva). Moscow: Eksmo.
7. Okhotsky, E., Gorshkov, M., Pavlenok, P., Toshchenko, Zh., Tsvetkova, G., & Karimova, A. (2024). Social structure of the armed forces and value orientations of military personnel URL: https://studme.org/61011/sotsiologiya/sotsialnaya_struktura_vooruzhennyh_tsennostnye_orientatsii_voennosluzhaschih(Accessed: 20.09.2024).
8. Suslin, RA. (2014). Formation of military service values in modern conditions. Scientific Notes of ZabGU, 58(5), 60–66.
9. Presidential Decree of the Russian Federation No. 809 of November 9, 2022, On approval of the Fundamentals of state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, p. 5 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru (Accessed: 20.08.2023).
10. Etkind, AM. (1979). Experience of theoretical interpretation of the semantic differential. Questions of Psychology, 1, 17–27.
11. Etkind, AM. (1980). The color relationship test and its application in the study of patients with neurons. In Social-psychological research in psychoneurology (pp. 110–114). Leningrad: Research Institute of Psychoneurology.
12. Jung, C., et al. (2021). Man and his symbols (Trans. NA Sirenko, SN Sirenko, IN Sirenko). Moscow: Profit-Style.
13. Yakushina, NV. (2008). Values and value orientations of servicemen of the Russian army. Vestnik SPbU, Series 12(3), 325–335.
14. Cohen, E.A. (1985). Citizens and soldiers: The dilemmas of military service. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
15. Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The measurement of meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
16. Schmitt, M. (1996). Uses and abuses of coefficient alpha. Psychological Assessment, 8(4), 350–353.