Transgenerational Patterns of Values and Attitudes in Post-Communist Romania

1. “Phantasmatic Generation: Historical Trauma and the Dynamics of Values and Social Attitudes” Alin Gavreliuc Associate Professor, PhD Department of Psychology Faculty of Sociology and Psychology, West University of Timisoara, Romania Bremen, IACCP Congress, 26-31/07/2008

2. The main objective of research • This presentation is a synthesis of researches focused on examination of transgenerational patterns of values and attitudes in post-communist Romania, organized in three consecutive stages: • in educational field (2002-2005, 180 subjects); • in private economical area (2006-2007, 180 subjects); • on three representative sub-samples, at the regional area, in “The Fifth Region of Development” (Timis, Arad, Caras-Severin and Hunedoara counties) (2007-2008, 1481 subjects). • Criteria of selection: • Subjects from the social stratumthat provides • a consistent rate of social passivity and conservatorism (educational area); • an increasing rate of social and economical commitments (generational groups consist of subjects that are involved in private firms that center on production, from the Western part of Romania; • Comparison of the results obtained in an “economic private sector” subjects samplewith “educational sector” subjects sample = on most dimensions we have identified strong similarities. • Relevance for Cross-Cultural Psychology – specific generational profiles in terms of different cultural patterns (grouped in a particular patterns of social attitudes and values).

3. Register of social subjectivity ………………………………….Personality as a psycho-social construct ………………… • VALUES • ATTITUDES (inferate variables) …………………………………………………………………………… • BEHAVIOURS (the level of collecting data about the personality of subjects)

4. Flexibility of values and (fundamental) social attitudes generated by socio-historical dynamics Aronson, 1988 Perloff, 1993 McGuire, 1998 Stability of values and (fundamental) social attitudes, despite of socio-historicaldynamics la longue durée (Braudel, 1958/1996) transgenerational remanent nature of social representations (Flament, 1995) Concurrent theoretical frameworks

5. Hypothesis of attitudinal changing (changing of fundamental social attitudes) Hypothesisla longue durée(the persistence of fundamental social attitudes) Concurrent hypotheses

6. Dilemma • A specific socialization of subjects, due to a particular generational affiliation, associated with a distinct integration of a historical rupture experience… …will generate or not a major attitudinal change, reflected in an ensemble of relational personality traits?

7. Methodology: selecting the psychological dimensions • Quantitative methodology: • Psychological traits articulated through the assessment of (fundamental) social attitudes: • Independence-interdependence • Self-esteem • Internalism-externalism • Self-determination + • Value orientations structure • Qualitative methodology: • Oral history interviews with the relevant persons from generation of “decretei”.

8. Psychological tests applied • Attitudinal register: • Independence-Interdependece Scale (Singelis, 1994) • Self-Esteem (Rosenberg, 1965) • Locus of Control (Rotter, 1964) • Self-Determination Scale (Sheldon, Ryan, Reis, 1996) • Awareness of Self • Perceived Choice • Axiological register: • Schwartz Values Survey(Schwartz, 2005) --> cultural level (value orientations)

9. Generational strata investigated • Sub-samples (2008) • G50: m(g50) = 55,27 years old [480subjects] • G35: m(g35) = 39,92years old [529subjects] • G20: m(g20) = 25,34years old [472subjects] • G50, G35, G 20 at the level of 2002 year. • Total: 1481subjects • Criteria for distribution of subjects: gender (½ M, ½ F), age (sub-scales+/- 2 years), residential area (urban high, urban medium, urban low, rural).

10. Generational portrait / Psychological dimensions G50 G35 G20 d(INT-IND) 0,28 0,32 0,51 SE 30,18 28,16 31,15 LC 14,15 12,05 14,85 AS 12,15 10,63 8,18 PC 9,89 10,34 9,55 SD 22,04 20,97 17,70 Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

11. Dependent variable d(INT-IND) ANOVA Independent variable Comparison between averages Value of the limit of significance Subcategories of independent variables with significant differences between them Differences between averages (I-J) Value of the limit of significance Generational stratum F(2, 1478) = 2,46 p=0,04 G50-G20 -0.23 p=0,038 G35-G20 -0.19 p=0,045 Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

12. Dependent variable SE ANOVA Independent variable Comparison between averages Value of the limit of significance Subcategories of independent variables with significant differences between them Differences between averages (I-J) Value of the limit of significance Generational stratum NS - - - - Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

13. Dependent variable LC ANOVA Independent variable Comparison between averages Value of the limit of significance Subcategories of independent variables with significant differences between them Differences between averages (I-J) Value of the limit of significance Generational stratum F(2, 1478)= 2,12 p=0,05 G35-G20 -2,8 p=0,049 Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

14. Dependent variable AS ANOVA Independent variable Comparison between averages Values of limit of significance Subcategories of independent variables with significant differences between them Differences between averages (I-J) Values of limit of significance Generational stratum F(2, 1478)= 2,45 p=0,038 G50-G20 3,97 p=0,04 Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

15. Dependent variable PC ANOVA Independent variable Comparison between averages Value of the limit of significance Subcategories of independent variables with significant differences between them Differences between averages (I-J) Value of the limit of significance Generational stratum NS - - - - Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

16. Dependent variable SD ANOVA Independent variable Comparison between averages Value of the limit of significance Subcategories of independent variables with significant differences between them Differences between averages (I-J) Value of the limit of significance Generational stratum F(2, 1478)= 3,56 p=0,002 G50-G20 4,34 p<0.001 G35-G20 3.27 p=0,002 Intergenerational portraits – attitudinal register of analysis

17. Values portraits - Seven Cultural Value Orientations (Schwartz, 1999-2007) • Conservatism The person is viewed as embedded in a collectivity, finding meaning in life largely through social relationships and identifying with the group. A cultural emphasis on maintenance of the status quo, propriety, and restraint of actions or inclinations that might disrupt the solidarity group or the traditional order. (social order, respect for tradition, family security, wisdom). • Intellectual Autonomy The person is an autonomous, bounded entity and finds meaning in his / her own uniqueness, seeking to express own internal attributes (preferences, traits, feelings) and is encouraged to do so. Intellectual Autonomy has a cultural emphasis on the desirability of individuals independently pursuing their own ideas and intellectual directions (curiosity, broadmindedness, creativity). • Affective Autonomy The person is an autonomous, bounded entity and finds meaning in his / her own uniqueness, seeking to express own internal attributes (preferences, traits, feelings) and is encouraged to do so. Affective Autonomy promote and protect the individual's independent pursuit of own affectively positive experience (pleasure, exciting life, varied life). • Hierarchy A hierarchical, differential allocation of fixed roles and of resources is the legitimate, desirable way to regulate interdependencies. People are socialized to comply with the obligations and rules and sanctioned if they do not. A cultural emphasis on the legitimacy of an unequal distribution of power, roles and resources (social power, authority, humility, wealth). • Egalitarianism Individuals are portrayed as moral equals, who share basic interests and who are socialized to transcend selfish interests, cooperate voluntarily with others, and show concern for everyone's welfare (equality, social justice, freedom, responsibility, honesty). People are socialized to as autonomous rather than interdependent because autonomous persons have no natural commitment to others (equality, social justice, freedom, responsibility, honesty). • Mastery Groups and individuals should master, control, and change the social and natural environment through assertive action in order to further personal or group interests. A cultural emphasis on getting ahead through active self-assertion (ambition, success, daring, competence). • Harmony The world is accepted as it is. Groups and individuals should fit harmoniously into the natural and social world, avoiding change and self-assertion to modify them. (unity with nature, protecting the environment, world of beauty).

18. Intergenerational axiological portraits (Schwartz, 1999, 2005)

19. Din cine este alcătuită “generaţia 35”?

20. Conclusions • Hypothesisla longue duréehas been confirmed. • Social strata are characterized through the following trangenerational patterns: • Interdependence (0,28-0,51 / 0*); • High self esteem (28,16-31,51 / 20*) • Externalism (12,05-14,85 / 11,5*) • Low Self-awareness (8,18-12,15 / 12,5*) • Low Perceived choice (9,55-10,34 / 12,5*) • Low Self-determination (17,70-22,04 / 22,50*) • When significant intergenerational differences appear, they express a progressive diminution of social involvement, and at the same time a rejuvenation of generational stratum. • “Generation 35” (“decreteii” = “the children of the Decree”, 770/1967) is distinguishing as a “problematic generation” / unstable, ambivalent, oscillating between extremes. • *Values that correspond of the middle of the scale.

21. Conclusions • Most frequently, in the qualitative researches realized on “decretei” samples, their “major problem” has emerged : burden (sometime realized at the maturity period of their biography), through a hurtful anamnesis of an original rejection: • Recurrent discourse in the identitary narratives: “My parents didn’t desire me. Even if they have never told me that, and they have offered me all their love afterwards. I was so hurt. And all my later life has gone with my unending attempt to convince them that their sacrifice was worth it. It’s clear to me now that I didn’t always achieve that. And I’ll never know if it was good that I was born. I’m often followed by that crazy thought: if Ceausescu’s delirium had never existed, I would have never been born. Me and a lot of my peers from my generation are forming an phantomatic people, which does not find our place. And our great problem is that we were condemned to life.A life in which our world wasn't prepared to receive us.We got by as we could. But what will come of this country when it would be in our hands? We are just trying to regroup somewhere. I’m so scared that I’m going to crash again.And like me, my people would return to the darkness.” (M.P, 37 years old)

22. Imperative of every authentic psychotherapy = the need for any liberating social pedagogy: To overcome a trauma, we have to assume it, then integrate it. It is just in this way we can cut out the symptoms of social autism that have been disseminated in our society for more than half a century. Phantasmatic generation