Values And Attitudes towards Cultural Diversity in the Russian Context
Lusine Grigoryan, Shalom Schwartz
Russia is a multicultural state, with more than 180 ethnic groups, with 81% of Russians
(Population census 2010). The origin of Russia’s multiculturalism is twofold: ethnic minorities,
living mainly in the national republics, and both internal and external immigrants, living mainly
in bigger cities. The intercultural relations are tense in Russia. As RIA Novosti published in
August 2013, “Public opinion remains solidly anti-immigration. In a poll in July by Russia’s
VTsIOM1, a third of respondents cited an “influx of other ethnicities” as the “likeliest threat to
national security” (Ankov & Stenin, 2013). The exploration of determinants of tolerance for
cultural diversity is crucial, but not studied in Russia. The main research question of this study is
how individuals’ basic values affect their attitudes to cultural diversity.
In this study by cultural diversity we mean differences in ethnicity or nationality. In
modern Russian language word nationality refers to belonging to ethnic group, and not to
citizenship, as in many western countries (Legal dictionary, 2000). We follow Cox (1993) in
defining cultural diversity as “the representation, in one social system, of people with distinctly
different group affiliations of cultural significance” (p. 6).
Schwartz (1994) defines values as “desirable transsituational goals, varying in
importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entity” (p. 21).
According to Schwartz, values form a circular motivational continuum, where values that are
located next to each other in the circle express similar motivational goals, and those that are
distant to each other, express opposing motivational goals. His original theory of basic human
values defines 10 values, which can be grouped into 4 higher-order values: Openness to Change,
Self-Enhancement, Conservation and Self-Transcendence (Schwartz, 1992). His recently refined
theory specifies 19 values that are located on the same motivational continuum and form the
same 4 higher-order values (Schwartz et al., 2012). Many of the studies of attitudes to cultural
diversity or to out-group members employed the theory of basic human values (Schwartz, 1992)
and methods that the theory suggests to operationalize the concept of values and test their effect
on attitudes (e.g., Sawyerr et al., 2005; Vala & Costa-Lopes, 2010; Davidov & Meuleman,
2012).
The relationships between values and attitude to cultural diversity are likely to differ
depending on whether a person belongs to majority or minority group. In the Russian context we
will consider three different groups: the Russian majority group, ethnic minority groups that live
in regions where Russians are the majority, and ethnic minority groups that live in national
republics where they are the majority group in their own region. Belonging to one of these three
1
Russian Public Opinion Research Center
groups is one of the contextual variables that we will examine in this study.
The second contextual factor is a characteristic of the surrounding environment, the level
of cultural diversity in each person’s region of residence. The contact hypothesis suggests that
people who have more contact with out-group members, and consequently more knowledge
about them, are more tolerant (Allport, 1954). The meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory
with 713 independent samples from 515 studies finds that intergroup contact typically reduces
intergroup prejudice (Pettigrew, Tropp, 2006). Applying this idea to the Russian setting suggests
that the higher the level of cultural diversity in a region (i.e., the more ethnically heterogeneous
the region), the more positive are the attitudes of the residents to cultural diversity. Furthermore,
the level of cultural diversity may influence the value-attitude links, because fact of experiencing
and “knowing” diversity can strengthen effect of some values, but weaken effect of others.
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1. Values of universalism-tolerance and universalism-concern have positive
influence on the attitude to cultural diversity among members of both ethnic majority and
minority groups.
Hypothesis 2. Value of benevolence-caring has positive influence on the attitude to cultural
diversity in the group of ethnic minorities, and no influence in the group of majorities.
Hypothesis 3. Values of stimulation, self-direction-action, and self-direction-thought have
positive influence on the attitude to cultural diversity both in the groups of ethnic majorities and
minorities.
Hypothesis 3.a. In more culturally diverse regions, the positive effects of stimulation, selfdirection-action and self-direction-thought are stronger, than in less culturally diverse regions.
Hypothesis 4. Power-dominance and power-resources have negative influence on the
attitude to cultural diversity in the group of ethnic majorities, and no influence in the group of
ethnic minorities.
Hypothesis 4.a. In more culturally diverse regions the negative effects of power dominance
and power resources in the group of ethnic majorities are stronger than in less culturally diverse
regions.
Hypothesis 5. Conformity-rules has negative influence on the attitude to cultural diversity
in the group of ethnic majorities in national republics, and no influence in the groups of Russians
and ethnic minorities.
Hypothesis 6. Conformity-interpersonal has positive influence on the attitude to cultural
diversity in the group of ethnic minorities, no influence in the group of Russians, and negative
influence in the group of majorities in national republics.
Hypothesis 7. Tradition and security-personal have positive influence on the attitude to
cultural diversity in the group of ethnic minorities, and negative influence in the group of
majorities.
Hypothesis 8. Security-societal have negative influence on the attitude to cultural diversity
in the group of Russians, and no influence in the group of ethnic minorities and majorities in
national republics.
Methods
A representative survey was conducted in Russia in 2012, using face-to-face interviews.
The sample includes representatives of two Russian regions: Central (N=1026) and NorthCaucasian (N=1035) federal districts. The sampling method is stratification, and data were
weighed by gender, age and sub-region. The weighted sample includes more than 10 ethnic
groups, ages from 18 to 60, with 52% female respondents.
Measures
Values. We employed a revised version of Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ-R). This
questionnaire includes 57 value items (3 items for each of 19 values), with 6-point response
scale, from 1 - "Not like me at all" to 6 - "Very much like me".
Attitude to cultural diversity was measured by two items ("If people of different
nationalities live near each other it makes life better" and "I don’t mind living among people of
different nationalities"), with 5-point response scale, from 1 "Strongly disagree" to 5 "Strongly
agree". These items where developed to measure the attitudes to cultural diversity as one of the
factors of social capital (Onyx & Bullen, 2000).
Cultural diversity. To measure the level of cultural diversity in each region, we calculated
a Cultural diversity index (CDI) by the formula 1 − ∑𝑘𝑘=1 𝑝𝑘2 , where k is a number of different
ethnic groups in the region and pk – the share of group k in the total population of this region.
This measure of ethno-linguistic fractionalization is widely used in the literature to assess ethnic
diversity (Bossert, D’Ambrosio, La Ferrara, 2005). We used data from the last population census
(2010) to identify the number of ethnic groups and the share of each ethnic group in the total
population for each of the 25 regions (oblasts) we surveyed.
Results
Results are not available yet, the study is in process. Results are expected by the end of
December 2013.