Changing Societies & Personalities, 2022 Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 727–732 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.199 EDITORIAL Beliefs, Opinions, and Expectations as a Resource of Re-Shaping Societies Elena A. Stepanova Institute for Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia In accordance with our Aims and Scope, Changing Societies & Personalities is particularly concerned with “how rapid societal-level changes are reshaping individual-level beliefs, motivations, and values—and how these individual-level changes in turn are reshaping societies.” This subject is obviously related to an old philosophical problem of the primacy of being over consciousness or vice versa, which basically determines quite a number of social research concepts. We prefer to consider this correlation as highly ambiguous, when social changes, on the one hand, and people’s opinions, moods, and expectations, on the other, continue to co-exist in the state of complex mutual influence and interdependence. In this vein, religious faith is influenced by secular values shaped by people’s way of life; people’s beliefs that rule their daily behavior are unconsciously borrowed from the norms common in the social environment; personal psychological characteristics determine political choices; attitudes toward nature and environmental issues directly affect everyday habits; the strive for continuous improvement of the educational level affects the level of social acceptance; personal development and professional success form a certain type of family relationships, etc. These and many other related topics are discussed in the current issue of Changing Societies & Personalities. The opening ESSAY Moral Choice and the Concept of Evil in Military Narratives of Orthodox Christians by Andrey S. Menshikov examines the attitude of Orthodox Christians to war. The essay is based on personal accounts and documents concerning the appropriate Orthodox Christian behavior in the wartime collected in two volumes: Bog i Pobeda: veruiushchie v velikikh voinakh za Rossiiu [God and Victory: Believers in the Great Wars for Russia] and Iz smerti v zhizn’. Svidetel’stva voinov o pomoshchi Bozh’ei [From Death to Life. Soldiers’ Account of God’s Help]. As Menshikov notes, his main research focus “is the construction of narratives about the religious experiences of the witnesses Received 1 December 2022 © 2022 Elena A. Stepanova Published online 30 December 2022 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 728 Elena A. Stepanova and participants of war in all their complexity and controversiality.” The research methodology involves critical discourse analysis (CDA), which was adapted for the study of religion, namely, the “lived religion” approach. The author demonstrates that patriotism was considered an important element of Orthodox identity during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. Francesco Rigoli in the ARTICLE Belief Formation in the Social Context: A Bayesian Decision Account raises a fundamental question, which amalgamates the main topic of the present issue: What social dynamics is responsible for the formation of beliefs? To address this question, Rigoli explores two research perspectives: one examines the individual level of belief formation, the other analyzes social dynamics, aiming “to integrate the individual and social levels of analysis by developing a broad theoretical framework describing how beliefs emerge within the social environment.” The method developed by the author and focused on the mechanisms of arbitrating among alternative hypotheses in order to explain life and reality, relies on a Bayesian decision framework, and is referred in the article as the Bayesian Decision Model of Beliefs (BDMB). According to BDMB, three factors underpin belief formation. The first factor is represented by prior beliefs, or general views, about the world and society already available before reasoning. The second factor is represented by novel evidence, “which can be experienced in two ways: directly, when evidence is conveyed by one’s own perception, or socially, when social sources, such as another person or the media, provide indirect information.” The third factor is utility, in terms of reward or punishment, expected if any hypothesis is accepted or rejected. According to Rigoli, “BDMB assumes that people are largely unaware of the factors shaping their beliefs, and simply perceive these beliefs as being true.” Employing BDMB as a framework, he proposes an explanation for how beliefs emerge in the interaction of individuals with one another and with their environment, as well as why beliefs vary among people. In the ARTICLE Narcissism and Political Left-Right Orientation in View of Basic Human Values: A Sample of Faculty of Management Students From Turkey, Fatma Ülkü Selçuk and Nil Demet Güngör explore such a personality trait as narcissism, which in recent decades has been deemed an epidemic especially in Western cultures. The authors consider narcissism as a significant factor in forming political orientations. The research sample included 257 university students from a foundation university in Anatolia (Turkey), which is largely attended by children from upper middle-class families. Such students are commonly exposed to Western culture and media at the same time as having diverse cultural backgrounds. As the authors underline, students “predominantly receive a pro-modernization education in Turkey where capitalism has been the dominant mode of production almost from the first few decades of the 20th century.” Thus, the authors expect “both similarities and differences with research studies that used Western samples in terms of the relation of political orientation to narcissism, its diverse facets and the underlying values.” The results for the sample described in the article displayed similarity with those from Western countries, at least partly. Chulpan I. Ildarhanova and Vera A. Gnevasheva in their ARTICLE Socio- Demographic Construct of Social Loneliness in Modern Russia investigate loneliness Changing Societies & Personalities, 2022, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 727–732 729 as a socio-philosophical phenomenon, which is generally associated with the degree to which people are involved in a community of people, family life, social reality, and macro-social environment. The authors intend to understand, evaluate, describe, and analyze the “degree of involvement, whose cessation leads to behavioral deviation caused by an increased self-inflicted sense of social loneliness.” They show the difference between the social role of an individual in a traditional society, which is frequently considered in the family context, and “contemporary thesaurus of personal development and success connected with psychic, physical, and financial safety, resulting in the choice of single life.” The article aims to assess the degree of happiness as a counterbalance to social loneliness setting the following objectives: to determine factors of loneliness; to study age differences in perception of loneliness; to identify loneliness risk groups, etc. The study is based on a digital questionnaire completed by 1350 respondents aged 18–60; the sample represents such large cities, as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Arkhangelsk, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, etc. In the ARTICLE Between Career and Motherhood: Factors Affecting Women’s Career Trajectories After Childbirth in Russia, Elena N. Gasiukova addresses a woman’s orientation toward career development and motherhood after childbirth, a problem having received little research attention. She seeks to answer the questions of “whether childbirth actually causes a woman to drop out of the labor market for a long time, which mothers are more oriented toward returning soon, and which mothers prefer to devote themselves exclusively to maternal duties after having a child.” Among other research questions are those related to career and life trajectory choices after childbirth, their connection with the previous professional positions, as well as identification of values affecting the choice between motherhood and career. The study is based on data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the Higher School of Economics (RLMS–HSE) from 2001 to 2021. Marina N. Kicherova, Galina Z. Efimova, and Svetlana M. Gertsen in the ARTICLE Non-Formal Education as a Resource of Social Inclusion: Intergenerational Approach argue that different social groups have unequal access to education, which affects the overall level of social inclusion and integration into society. Therefore, non- formal education as an addition, alternative, and/or a complement to formal education could contribute to social inclusion of different generations in different spheres of life. The authors present a typological picture of peculiar generations in the non-formal education market including their interest and motivation, and set up the following research questions: “What is the impact of non-formal education on social inclusion? How do non-formal education practices differ across generations?” The survey involved 944 people from the Tyumen region of Russia aged 18 to 82 years. In the ARTICLE Assessment of the Psychological Well-Being of Russian Youth With the Perma-Profiler, Elena N. Volkova, Anna Yu. Akimova, and Oksana M. Isaeva define well-being “as an integral indicator that corresponds to each individual’s positive psychological functioning and ability to experience happiness and life satisfaction.” They stress the role of positive emotions, which have a direct impact on the degree of individual psychological stability and the level of life satisfaction. The research was https://changing-sp.com/ 730 Elena A. Stepanova carried out using the PERMA model with five pillars of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. The authors present the results of a survey of the psychological well-being of Russian young people conducted at the beginning of 2021 and based on the authors’ own adaptation of the PERMA- Profiler questionnaire for Russia. A Google form of the questionnaire addressed to young people aged 18–35 was developed and subsequently disseminated through the Internet; 11,811 forms were completed by young people from central Russia. The ARTICLE Metabolic Transformations in the Area of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Russian Megalopolises: The City of Moscow Case by Polina O. Ermolaeva, Yulia V. Ermolaeva, and Dmitry V. Efremenko analyzes causal relationships in the area of municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal in Russian megalopolises, and Moscow in particular, “with a focus on the reciprocity and interplay of social, informational, technological, economic, and environmental processes, as well as their metabolic transformations.” The authors’ hypothesis takes into account the controversial processes of MSW management in Russian cities, which occur in association with the rapid growth of material and informational waste, construction of waste incineration plants, politicization of environmental protests related to poor waste management, criminalization of waste management businesses, etc. At the same time, as the authors note, one can observe and determine changes in the attitudes and behaviors of social groups that are sometimes overlooked. The research was carried out in two stages: in the first stage, the existing discourse in the field of education and management of MSW and regional characteristics were employed through an analysis of public opinion, media, federal and regional programs, etc. In the second stage, 90 semi-structured interviews with experts including academicians, representatives of environmental organizations, and “garbage” operators were conducted. In the ARTICLE The Importance of Green Practices to Reduce Consumption, Olga V. Zakharova, Anna V. Glazkova, Irina N. Pupysheva, and Natalia V. Kuznetsova argue that a solution to environmental problems is not possible without radical change in social practices, including consumption as a driving force for modern way of production. The authors identify green practices aimed at reducing consumption, which are discussed in the Tyumen regional communities on social media platform VK. The dataset comprises 1987 textual posts, which deal with separate waste collection. As the authors underline, their “study was framed by the scientific discussion around the Anthropocene as a term that asserts the importance of human activities for the future of our planet,” especially among ordinary people who make daily purchases, use transport and household appliances, and develop certain values and traditions. In the ARTICLE Hotel Employees’ Attitude and Acceptance Toward Human- Robot Co-Working Based on the Industry 5.0 Concept, Khaled Ghazy and Alena E. Fedorova explore employees’ psychological and social attitudes toward robot co-working in the hotel business. The authors describe Industry 5.0 collaboration between humans and robots in the workplaces, which maximizes efficiency by using human intelligence, artificial intelligence, and creativity enriching the workforce by transitioning workers from physical to cognitive jobs, switching from mass customization to mass personalization, and placing a high value on personalized Changing Societies & Personalities, 2022, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 727–732 731 consumer services. As a result, “humans will concentrate on critical thinking, decision- making, innovation, and creativity, leading to increased personalized services, while robots will perform repetitive, tedious, and labor-intensive work.” Implementing new technologies, such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and service automation, brings remarkable changes to how hotels serve their customers. At the same time, despite many positive cases regarding robots supporting human partners, not everyone has a positive attitude toward robots. The authors seek to study if there is a significant difference regarding attitudes toward robots between employees’ males and females, age groups, and educational levels. The study sample consisted of 67 questionaries completed by employees from 20 hotels in Yekaterinburg, Russia. The ARTICLE The Role of Managers’ Cultural Intelligence and Demographic Variables in Building Trust in Business Relations by Eva Boštjančič, Fayruza S. Ismagilova, and Sara Pavlović Milijašević investigates cultural intelligence as related to the emergence of multicultural environments. According to the authors, the goals of partners in business partnerships could be achieved only as a result of their joint work. This implies that each party is ready to avoid taking excessive advantage of the others. Cultural intelligence as the capability to function effectively in an intercultural context plays an important role in business relationships and in the formation of trust. Thus, “studying the differences between national cultures, organizational cultures, forms of leadership, and their consequences can help not only in understanding business partners with another cultural identity, but also in establishing and developing productive cooperation.” The research sample involved a total of 560 leaders and managers in mutual business relationships: 115 Croatians, 114 Russians, and 331 Slovenians. The authors posed the research questions concerning the possibility to predict the level of trust based on the participants’ gender, age, country, and level of cultural intelligence, and expected certain differences to emerge despite the relatively similar cultural backgrounds of these nations. Alexandra Yu. Smirnova and Igor V. Tolochin in the ARTICLE Dreams in the Bible and in Modern English Discourse: A Shift in Perspective argue that research into the contexts that contain the word “dream” can contribute to getting “an important insight into human nature with its aspirations for spiritual growth and access to transcendental experiences, as well as into cultural phenomena reflected in the process of dream interpretation.” The article presents a comparative study of dream narratives in the Bible and in modern English texts. The authors reconstruct the meaning of the noun “dream” from its context based on the semiotic tradition laid down by Ludwig Wittgenstein and argue that the process of secularization among other things has a significant impact at the level of linguistic structures: “On the one hand, it creates new patterns of evaluation in the religious discourse, producing contextual shifts and, therefore, shifts in word meanings. On the other, older patterns of the verbal representation of transcendental experiences are transformed and transferred into non-religious genres.” Their presumption is that “the linguistic sign as a vehicle of cultural information is sensitive to major shifts in value judgements. New evaluative patterns create new word senses, whereas the deconstruction of older evaluative patterns brings forth changes in the status of already existing ones.” The case study of https://changing-sp.com/ 732 Elena A. Stepanova biblical texts about various types of dreams seeks to prove the novelty of the authors’ method, which presupposes the broad understanding of the term “context”. In the RESEARCH NOTE section, the study At the Crossroads of Marriage: Experiences of Young Urban Middle-Class Women Negotiating Family and Sexuality Within Heterosexual Intimate Relationships in North India by Tanya Lamba is presented. The study is inspired by the personal experience of the author. She states that the practice of arranged marriage is still the most prevalent form of marriage in the country. Arranged marriage restricts personal choice where individual ambitions are suppressed. However, urban educated middle-class women are experiencing a new trend of arranged marriages, where their choice is given some consideration. Lamba addresses the following questions: “How do young middle-class professional women negotiate marriage within urban contexts relationships? What are the various ways women negotiating with their partners, family, and society at large? How does the transition from personal relationships to marriage take place? Why do women have to struggle for this transition?” To find answers to these questions, Lamba conducted a number of in-depth interviews with unmarried urban middle- class women in Delhi in the age group of 25–30 years who are in a heterosexual intimate relationship. They work in a development sector and have completed their post-graduation in social sciences. The BOOK REVIEWS section includes two reviews. The first one by Ekaterina S. Lebed is entitled “Heidegger in Russian Philosophical Thought: History of Reception and Current Interpretations.” The review observes the collection edited by Yury M. Romanenko, which represents the variety of M. Heidegger’s philosophy by modern Russian authors. Lebed underlines that Martin Heidegger remains one of the most popular philosophers among Russian intellectuals and seeks to offer some answers to the question as to why it is so. The second review of Duncan McDuie-Ra “Debating Race in Contemporary India” is written by Bhasker Malu and Santhosh Kareepadath Rajan. They point out that the book aims to explain how the Indian Government’s stance on racism moved from its complete denial to acceptance and the development of policy formulation to protect the racial minority. Discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. In planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections, or book reviews. For more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/