Social sentiment of production workers in an industrial city: sociological analysis

Social sentiment is an important factor in the formation of public order. It helps see how comfortable people feel amid this order. Social sentiment and the process of its formation, changes in its functions need to be studied at different levels: from municipal to national. This problem cannot be solved without research at the level of socio-territorial communities. It should be born in mind that the phenomenon of social sentiment and its state to a great extent depend on the people’s social conditions, on the real social environment prevailing at the regional level and at the level of settlements of different types. The study of social sentiment has a certain scientific tradition, the origins of which lie primarily in philosophy and psychology. From the sociological point of view, social sentiment is a prevailing social attitude of certain social groups in a certain period of time and is interpreted as a phenomenon of social consciousness or as a structural component of public opinion. Social sentiment changes over time. This is natural, since the social reality itself, which determines social sentiment, is changing. External factors influencing social sentiment may be the characteristics of social life common to most of individuals. There are various approaches to studying social sentiment; however, the conventional technique has not yet been developed. The purpose of the present research is to clarify the methodology of studying social sentiment given the operationalization of this concept. The object of analysis is a social group of production workers of an industrial city. The authors used empirical data on social attitudes of production workers of a large industrial centre of the Russian North-West - Cherepovets. The situation is largely typical of many Russian industrial cities. Moreover, production workers are not only active participants of economic relations; they still represent a significant organized socio-political community, whose social sentiment can have certain influence on the socio-political situation in the territory of residence.