Reflexive positioning approach to the study of felicity and representations of happiness in the digital era

¹ Moscow Pedagogical University, Institute of Childhood Department of Psychological Anthropology, Moscow, Russia
² HSE University, School of Psychology, Moscow, Russia
³ Moscow Regional State University, Moscow, Russia
⁴ Khoroshevskaya school, Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: nkovaig@mail.ru

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of perceptions of what it means to be happy among modern Russians. The main focus of the study is to identify the level of subjective well-being of the respondents in association with their worldview ideas about happiness and the image of the world in representatives of different age groups. The paper gives a brief overview of the main studies of felicity, the concept of happiness, and subjective well-being. Based on the theoretical analysis of conceptual developments concerning the stages of development of moral consciousness, the value and meaning component of the image of the world, and the factors of subjective well-being, several models of happiness are constructed based on the results of content analysis and reflexive positioning analysis of the respondents’ reflections. The research targets also include the ratio of the scales of subjective well-being (SW) and subjective happiness (SH) or felicity and the nature of subjective satisfaction depending on the value-semantic model of ideas about happiness and the established image of the world. The study uses the methods of theoretical analysis and conceptual modeling, content analysis, and reflexive positional analysis of the text, a questionnaire including the scales of SW, SH, reflection on happiness, and the author’s value-meaning diagnostic complex. The noteworthy results substantiating the novelty of the study show that: 1) The level of the subjective happiness scale is higher than the SB scale and shows a more positive orientation; 2) The respondents with the religious and existential models of happiness were the happiest based on the scales of subjective well-being and subjective happiness; the respondents with the consumer model of happiness were the least happy. Two new opportunities emerge from the point of further research prospects and the practice of psychological counseling and psychotherapy. First, there is an opportunity to diagnose the presence and nature of an intra-personal conflict in the presence of a notable gap between the values on the SW and SH scales. Second, it is possible to identify the reasons for deficits and the direction of development based on reflexive positioning analysis of free reflections on happiness.