Cultural Values as Predictors of Positive or Negative Attitude Towards Innovation Among Representatives of Various Generations of Russian People

In the course of the last few years, the Russian society has been going through a stage of political, cultural and economic transformations that bring changes into the lifestyle, attitudes, and worldview of Russian citizens. The process of development has embraced not only science and technology, but also the social and cultural aspects of life. The contemporary image of Russia is in many ways defined by its younger generation that grew up within new economic, social and political standards. Young people’s values, attitudes and aspirations differ from those of the adult generation of Russians, since the last years have been marked by transformations inside the country, as well as by some global changes. The paper demonstrates the results of a study which aimed to identify the relationship between individual values and attitude towards innovation. 380 respondents, young and adult representatives of the Russian population, took part in the research. The respondents belonged to the younger generation (under 25 years old) or to the adult generation (over 45 years old). The principal instrument used was the method of questionnaires. The methodic inventory consists of three main blocks oriented to the study of the following constructs: the PVQ-R method of measuring individual values (Schwartz et al., 2011) and the method of “Self-assessment of innovative qualities of a personality” (Lebedeva, Tatarko, 2009).The goal of the research is to reveal the age differences in values and attitudes towards innovation, and to find out which values determine positive or negative attitude towards innovations among representatives of different generations of Russians. The younger generation values " Self-Direction Thought", "Stimulation", "Achievement", " Power Dominance" stimulate the adoption of innovations.