Social and cultural factors of the optimism of the youth in Russia

The article identifies and describes in details different types of optimism: emotional, economic, social, and civil. The comparative analysis of the identified types of optimism of the youth (18—30 year-olds) with representatives ofaverage (31—50) and senior (51+) age categories was carried out. The basis for the statistical analysis was the data ofthe European social research of 2012, two all-Russian representative surveys of4000 Russian citizens conducted by Institute of sociology ofthe Russian Academy ofSciences in October 2015 and March 2016. It was established that young Russians have a rather high level ofoptimism as compared to their peers in the West. It became clear that the most essential differences of the nature of optimism of young and older people lie in their emotional mood. At the same time it was revealed that emotional optimism is derivative of financial position, and for this reason it is not an independent factor of constructive activity of the youth. Social and civil optimism are most often linked to Russia’s conservative prospect, the conformist approach, and perception ofthe government and the current policy. The age factor does not play an essential role here. Higher level of economic optimism of the youth is explained by their improved financial position obtained over the last three years (2012—2014).