Pleasures and Hardships in Modern Life: A Subjective Dimension of Social Well-Being

Abstract

The article deals with the issues of studying the social well-being of the population in socio-humanitarian knowledge from antiquity to the present day. The social and cultural-historical conditionality of the social well-being of the population is revealed. Particular attention is paid to the study of the pleasure and hardships of modern life, the study of the subjective perception of positive or negative social well-being, the identification of variable factors that contribute to the strengthening or weakening of various indicators of social well-being. A practical part of the study presents the results of the author’s study of the pleasures and hardships of modern life, which contribute to the transformation of the characteristics of the social well-being of Russians. The study involved 1,170 people aged 18 to 65, 55 % women and 45 % men, living in different regions of the Russian Federation. The study was conducted in the form of an online survey. As a result, the author fixes the factors that are considered “normal” by Russians, identifies the forms of the most common “suffering” and strategies for obtaining “pleasure”. The main meanings of life are also indicated ‒ “for the sake of which it is worth enduring the hardships of life” and what are the possible prospects for personal and social (socially approved, generally accepted) happiness. Gender differences are indicated in the perception of the hardships and pleasures of life. The author proves that subjective experiences associated with the perception of personal and social well-being determine the general level of social security and personal life prospects regarding well-being and satisfaction, which determine various forms and strategies for the subjective measurement of social well-being. This becomes the basis not only of individual strategies for social realization, but also an indicator of the social dynamics of various communities, groups and entire strata of society, contributing to the processes of social consolidation or disintegration of social reproduction, social empathy and solidarity, the construction of new forms of personal and social identity and a sense of “we” in modern Russian society. The subjective measurement of social well-being becomes a cut of the emotional-cognitive perception of personal and social prospects of social development.