Cultural Life Scenario in Generations: an Instrument to Study “the Changing in the Unchanged”

Abstract

Background. Increasing social attention to the problem of expanding contradictions in social attitudes among the younger and older generations and, as a consequence of a possible generational conflict, causes an increase in the number of social-psychological studies of intergenerational differences. However, most of these studies do not seek to distinguish between the factor of belonging to generational and age groups, which causes methodological confusion in the results. Objectives. The aim is to identify and describe the role of the factor of belonging to a generation in the cultural life scenarios (CLS) in different generations of modern Russians in relation to the age factor. Methods. An empirical study (N = 951) was carried out using a modified ‘Lifeline’ technique. The Age-Period-Cohort (APC) analysis was applied to process results showing differences between generation and age factors. Results. The revealed features of CLS in four generational groups were described in detail. Also, the possibilities of studying CLS in the context of generational and age-psychological factors were analyzed. In particular, it was noted that it was the so-called generation Z that demonstrated the greatest number of differences in CLS from other generations, as well as a trend towards individualization of life scenarios. Conclusions. A conclusion was made and mathematically substantiated about the importance of continuing the study of generations in their socio-psychological understanding (separately from the age factor). A theoretical proposal was made to revise the boundaries of generations with the subsequent division of generations into subgroups.

Keywords

• life script
• cultural life script
• generations
• generation classification
• 'life line’ method
• zoomers
• generation z
• apc analysis