The “avoidant individual” as a social personality type in the Russian Trauma Society

The relevance of the research is determined by the importance of scientific comprehension of the impact of intense socio-cultural turbulence, occurring both in Russia and outside it, on people living in our country. The socio-cultural and psychological effects of the epidemic, special military operation and external economic sanctions are of a powerful traumatogenic nature. Russian sociology faces a whole set of tasks to study the effects of deep, sometimes catastrophic, social changes that Russia has experienced not only in the previous three and a half decades, but throughout the entire period of the 20th–21st centuries. Their results are diverse and by no means always have a positive impact on the value orientations and other internal phenomena underlying the social types of Russians’ personality.

The social personality type, which is formed in a society, concentrates its main features, advantages and disadvantages, manifests social development trends, both positive and negative. Excluding their representation in various social groups, it is impossible to effectively implement public administration at all levels.

Actualization of these issues is also associated with the increasing public need for the human dimension of processes studied by sociology (Toshchenko, 2012, p. 25). “Russian society’s traumatization, expressed in the split, bifurcation, contradictory conflict development, has acquired its particular importance among the new phenomena of public consciousness at the current development stage...” (Toshchenko, 2015, p. 37).

The new interpretation of contemporary Russia as a trauma society requires addressing the analysis of the effects of this state in the human aspect, from sociological positions – this is, in particular, a detailed analysis of the existing social personality types because not all of them have been studied in detail. At the same time, in our opinion, there are some “blind spots” in the study of personality types, which are conditioned by Russia’s specifics, inherent in it as a trauma society. In the previous decade, the analysis of social personality types of contemporary Russian society, especially in the light of the trauma society concept, is very rare in the current sociological agenda.

In this article, by social personality types we mean such personality types that are immanent to the entire trauma society, regardless of the social affiliation of an individual (of course, their prevalence in different social strata and groups is different, but the study of this issue requires special empirical research and is beyond the scope of our article). Hence, the aim of our research is to analyze the features of the social personality type “avoiding individual” in the Russian trauma society.

The research problem is the following: the contradiction between the results of numerous studies, according to which people living in a trauma society have personal defense mechanisms that affect their value orientations and social behavior, on the one hand, and the lack of sociological interpretation of this information in the context of the formation of a specific social personality type.

The subject of the research is the features of the social personality type “avoiding individual” in the Russian trauma society. The object of the research is social personality types, formed in contemporary Russia in the context of its belonging to trauma societies.

Research methodology

The theories of trauma society (J. Alexander, P. Sztompka, Zh.T. Toshchenko) and anthro-posociocultural approach (anthroposociocultural evolutionism; N.I. Lapin) serve as the methodological basis of the work.

In recent decades, the “trauma society” concept has become common among sociologists: “Trauma theories proper, applied to the analysis of societal and social realities, appeared in the late 20th – early 21st century, which their authors attributed to the non-linear development of society” (Kravchenko, 2020, p. 61). Among these scientists we should include J. Alexander and P. Sztompka, whose works (as well as a number of other foreign and Russian sociologists) are based on the macrosociological approach of Zh.T. Toshchenko, according to which the changes taking place in the world are becoming increasingly difficult to describe with the help of the categories of “evolution” and “revolution”; the author introduces the concept of “trauma society”, describing its distinctive features in detail (Toshchenko, 2020). According to the innovative thesis, “the path on which modern Russia is moving should be called the path caused by social trauma in its development” (Toshchenko, 2020, p. 11).

In the context of the aim of our study, it is important to consider the position formulated by Zh.T. Toshchenko, according to which “the influence of egoistic and group interests is great in trauma societies” (Toshchenko, 2020, p. 55). His conclusion is logical: “Russia’s trauma was inflicted by those groups, which by misunderstanding are called the elite” (Toshchenko, 2020, p. 60).

In this article, we rely on the anthropo-sociocultural approach (anthroposociocultural evolutionism) created by N.I. Lapin (Lapin, 2018). The scientist uses the concept of “trauma society” in relation to Russia, analyzing the factors that generate trauma both in the country’s population as a whole and in the inhabitants of different regions (Lapin, 2021a).

We should note that unlike Zh.T. Toshchenko, N.I. Lapin considers the “process of traumatization” of Russian society in a wider time range, starting from the origins of Russian statehood. According to his judgment, the main source of trauma “...is the state. Consequently, we have a society traumatized by its state”1.

In one of recent reports, N.I. Lapin notes: “The synthesizing nature of an individual’s identification with the multitude of other members of a given society means his identification, or choice of strategy of interactions with the society in which he exists and with whose members he interacts. This is the basic interaction of individuals. We propose to characterize the meanings of these generalized interactions as a civic-social culture of mass interactions of the population with society as a whole, which affects various types of people’s activities. There are different types of this culture, with its features in each civilization, societycountry” (Lapin, 2021b, pp. 5–6).

Introducing the concept of “civic-social culture”, N.I. Lapin further characterizes it as “... routine, symbiosis-traumogenic ” (emphasis added by N.I. Lapin – V.N.), identifying it as a source of cultural traumas (Lapin, 2021b, p. 5).

The scholar concludes: “The results of such a culture were many socio-cultural traumas, society, and the state, which created and continue creating dangerous risks for Russia’s existence and threats to its successful responses to new great challenges” (Lapin, 2021b, p. 6).

Thus, the above works of prominent Russian scientists orient us to analyze contemporary Russian society as a “trauma society”, which is characterized by serious conflicts and contradictions; one of their main sources is the “routine symbiosis-traumogenic” culture associated with the nature of people’s identification, interaction between social groups and individuals.

Let us emphasize that the analysis of social personality types is impossible without resorting to an interdisciplinary approach. As S.A. Kravchenko rightly notes, at present “...a different type of interdisciplinarity is emerging, which implies the possibility of summarizing and using the results of separately taken monodisciplines; it can be called resultant interdisciplinarity” (Kravchenko, 2020b, p. 19). Accordingly, such a method as secondary analysis of sociological and psychological research data is widely used.

Literature review

One of the important directions of modern sociology is the development and study of various social typologies (including personality). For example, the monograph by well-known Russian authors (Typological Analysis..., 2023) considers this topic in detail. In the broadest sense, a social personality type can be called a stable set of features that characterize it as a representative of a certain social community in a particular era (Nemirovsky, Nevirko, 2008).

Many publications have been devoted to the study of social personality types, existing in contemporary Russia. However, there is a tendency to “repeat the past”. For example, the sociological literature continues discussing the correlation among the population of the country of groups with orientations that were born in the Soviet era, on the one hand, and “market-democratic” personality traits, on the other hand, and their role in public life.

There are a variety of personality typologies, which have become classical, based on sociological, psychological, and social-anthropological theories

(A. Adler, R. Darendorf, A. Kardiner, A. Maslow, R.K. Merton, J. Mead, E.D. Risman, E. Fromm, C. Horney, E. Spranger, C.G. Jung, etc.). Many of the personality typologies used in sociology are of a combined, interdisciplinary nature.

When considering the Russian tradition of research on this issue, one cannot but mention the famous work of G.L. Smirnov, which became a kind of normative reference point for authors who studied socialist reality in the 1970s–1980s (Smirnov, 1971). Subsequently, a significant contribution to the understanding of the essence of the social personality type formed in socialist society was made by Yu.A. Levada, whose research has been still relevant (Levada, 1995).

In contemporary Russian sociological literature, it is almost universally recognized that the social personality typology existing in society primarily reflects its social essence: “Social and charac-terological features of personality ... are conditioned by the system of social relations, features of culture, position of individuals in the social structure of society” 2.

At the same time, some scientific publications on this topic suffer from speculative nature. For example, G.I. Kolesnikova, relying on P. Sorokin’s concept of civilizational personality types, logically identifies three social types: Eastern (contemplative), Western (rational), Russian (emotional), pointing out that “...in modern Russian society, two social personality subtypes coexist simultaneously: oriented toward traditional values and dominated by Western values” (Kolesnikova, 2018, p. 45). At the same time, this typology, in our opinion, does not take into account the complexity of the palette of social types of contemporary Russian society, ignoring the contradictory processes taking place in it, including its sociocultural “traumatization”.

Another example is the well-known model, whose author, distinguishing seven social types of personality, believes that “...for simplicity, we can limit ourselves to four types: harmonious worker, ego-actor, servant and player”. This synthetic typology also includes the criterion of “awareness”: “The main social personality types are able to evolve depending on the awareness of their own activity and moral choice” (Smirnov, 2011, p. 117). Having a certain scientific logic, the author’s constructs are poorly connected both with the reality in which we live and with the sociological research practice because their empirical interpretation is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Relying on the trauma society theory developed by Zh.T. Toshchenko, Y.G. Volkov analyzes objective processes and events in the Russian society life that served as factors in the formation of sociocultural traumas. In his opinion, the most large-scale of them are often geopolitical in nature (Volkov, 2022). The author makes a fair thesis: “Social and cultural traumas also hinder the formation of a creative type of personality...”, “... It is simply impossible to form such a personality under the pressure of traumatic perceptions and images, outside of healthy horizontal social ties, atmosphere of mutual trust, in a situation of acute social and property inequality” (Volkov, 2022, p. 21).

However, in the Russian sociological literature, there is a general lack of analysis of the specific features of the social personality type characteristic of the trauma society.

At the same time, Russian psychological science has published a number of studies devoted to the development of personality in a traumatic situation. For instance, the article by A.I. Krasilo analyzes the individual-social form of psychological trauma (Krasilo, 2021). Representatives of this science actively consider the influence of traumatic experience of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychoemotional state and other psychological features of people (Isayeva, Sutayeva, 2021; Nestik, Zhuravlev, 2021, etc.). A number of publications are devoted to the personality traumatization in the process of military conflicts (Boiko, Novikova, 2019), their impact on the psychological state of society (Nestik, 2023). Although they do not talk about social personality types, the obtained data are reasonable to take into account when analyzing the socio-psychological mechanisms of formation of the personality type “avoiding individual”.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that there is a wide range of English-language publications analyzing the impact of various socio-cultural traumas (including historical and psychological traumas) from the perspective of sociology and related scientific disciplines on certain personal constructs.

In our opinion, the key to understanding the specificity of social personality types in trauma societies is the concept of “complex posttraumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD)”; according to the definition formulated by the authors of an article published in the authoritative scientific journal The Lancet , it is “a severe mental disorder that arises in response to traumatic life events. Complex posttraumatic stress disorder is characterized by three major clusters of posttraumatic symptoms, as well as chronic and pervasive disturbances in emotion regulation, identity, and relationships” (Maercker et al., 2022).

For example, based on a meta-analysis and data from 19 studies (5,971 individuals), the association of all temperament traits with PTSD symptoms was established regardless of individuals’ gender, type of study, type of trauma, temperament score, and time since trauma (Cyniak-Cieciura, Zawadzki, 2021).

In recent years, interdisciplinary empirical studies have been published that analyze the changes that occur in personality under the influence of different types of socio-cultural trauma, such as intergenerational cultural trauma related to the Armenian genocide (Mangassarian, 2016). Posttraumatic stress, willingness to forgive, and meaning in life “in residents of regions experiencing ongoing violence (Middle East), violence in the recent past (Africa), violence and disasters in the distant past (Caucasus), and recent natural disasters (the Caribbean) (Tummala-Narra, 2022) have also been studied, etc. Characteristically, some interdisciplinary studies see trauma as a collective disease and the root cause of protracted social conflict (see, for example, Rinker, Lawler, 2018, etc.). According to A.M. Subica and B.G. Link, “following cultural trauma, affected groups are socially disadvantaged and subject to pervasive stress, stigmatization, and resource limitation that perpetuate health inequalities. Accordingly, cultural trauma may represent an unexplored fundamental cause of social inequalities in health (Subica, Link, 2022).

Over the previous years, the focus of attention has often been placed on ways of overcoming the consequences of socio-cultural trauma for an individual. For example, T. Glebova, S. Knudson-Martin analyzed the problem of the impact of sociocultural trauma on human personality in the context of injustice associated with totalitarianism, war and related deprivations, considering in this context practical ways to overcome such traumas (Glebova, Knudson-Martin, 2023).

The results of socio-cultural traumas in modern Russia and some other post-Soviet countries are also considered. In particular, E.V. Miskova, based on autoethnographic methodology, studied the effects of historical and cultural traumas experienced over the previous century by several generations of families in Russia. The author refers to such events as “wars, repressions, and radical socioeconomic and political changes that occurred over the last three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union”. The article shows ways of overcoming old traumas and internal conflicts in the context of current social problems caused by them, such as “low institutional and interpersonal trust, gender and generational inequality, and collective emotional processes of denial, loss, and guilt” (Miskova, 2023, p. 31).

Drawing on the results of surveys conducted “in October and November 2014, before the student protests and Euromaidan in Ukraine” (Dlugosz et al., 2020, p. 18) on representative samples in postSoviet countries belonging to “trauma societies”: Russia (N = 992), Belarus (N = 1034), Moldova (N = 970), and Ukraine (N = 1000), the Polish researcher found that people’s adaptation to change in post-Soviet societies was facilitated by young age. The younger generation had higher levels of happiness, better assessments of their financial situation, their position in the social hierarchy and future prospects. The highest satisfaction rate with democracy was noted in Belarus and Russia. “Russians and Belarusians, and then Moldovans are located at high positions in the continuum of adaptation to social change, while Ukrainians managed to adapt to the system to the lowest degree” (Dlugosz et al., 2020, p. 9). Kyrgyzstan, included in recent decades in complex transition processes, is also a “trauma society”, which “is reflected in the features of mass consciousness and personality” (Sorochaikina, 2020, p. 116).

In general, studies by various authors show that in the trauma society existing in different countries (and the Russian society is not an exception), significantly distorted personality types are formed.

Research results

This brings up the logic question about the specificity of social personality types formed in the trauma society. Traditionally, one of the main criteria of social personality typologization is its value orientations. We should agree with the opinion, according to which “the social personality type depends on what the society itself is like, and especially what its priority values are” (Volkov, 2021, p. 18). At the same time, in sociology they are important indicators of the consequences of society’s traumatization (of course, we can also talk about needs, various emotional phenomena, as well as about person’s social behavior).

Sociological research usually defines the value that the respondent strives to realize. It seems that the idea that the motivation of social behavior can be based only on the desire to realize certain values is somewhat simplistic. It does not take into account the existence of a significant range of behavioral motivations that are not based on the desire to realize a social value, but are based on the avoidance of possible repetition of any negative traumatic events and their consequences. A series of sociocultural traumas and catastrophes have generated intense socio-cultural turbulence in the country; they are: the war in Afghanistan, the collapse of the Soviet Union, hostilities in “hot spots” on the country’s borders, two Chechen wars, the war in Georgia (2008), hostilities in Donbas, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the SMO. The states of anomie, exclusion, stress, frustration, deprivation and related posttraumatic motivation are widespread, in the most general form based on a person’s desire to avoid repetition of the traumatic situation and its consequences.

Accordingly, we can distinguish two types of social motivation in the trauma society, which underlie the respective personality types: a) directed toward self-actualization and b) post-traumatic, stemming from the desire to avoid a repetition of the traumatic situation.

The first of them includes orientations to any values that are considered by a person as a way of self-realization. This can be, for example, creativity, professional activity, family, etc. It is logical to define this type as a “self-fulfilling individual” .

In this case, the trauma society massively generates a social personality type, the basis of whose behavior is the desire under the action of the psychological protection mechanism to avoid the repetition of various socio-cultural, psychological traumas, any negative life experience (and its consequences), received not only in the socialization period, but also in any subsequent period of human life3. Accordingly, this is an “avoiding individual”. For example, orientation to the values of “power”, “security” or “freedom”, “wealth”, which to a greater or lesser extent reflect the deficit of the feeling of security experienced by a person, can testify to belonging to this person. For example, the orientation to wealth is often based on the desire to avoid repetition of negative experiences generated by poverty or poorness that have already been experienced (or seen). A person’s desire for power in most cases is expressed in the realization of a traumatized sense of security. If in the socialization process (more often at early stages) a person lost control over their own life, later they try to gain maximum power over surrounding people by any means. Accordingly, its achievement acts as a means of avoiding negative experiences, which are manifested in such phenomena well registered by sociological methods as anxiety, various kinds of social fears and risks. Based on the data obtained in Russia as a whole and in several of its regions using the methodology developed under the guidance of N.I. Lapin, the comparative analysis shows that any social fears are a powerful factor of socio-cultural deformation of such important characteristics of the human life world as locus of control, the degree of pessimism/optimism and life satisfaction (Nemirovsky et al., 2018). One of the important indicators of traumatization of Russian society is the anxiety state, as evidenced by various surveys of the country’s residents4. This also applies to depressive states. A survey conducted by the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences together with VCIOM in September 2023 showed that 32% of respondents have clinical (emphasis added – V.N.) level of symptomatology of depression based on self-reports, and 18% of respondents have anxiety5. At the same time, there is a social differentiation in the manifestation of these states, which, in our opinion, directly indicates the belonging of carriers of the social type “avoiding individual” to specific social groups: “In general, monitoring studies of the Institute of Psychology RAS in 2020–2023 ... show that in crisis conditions, the most susceptible to anxiety-depressive states are representatives of young people aged 18–24 years, women, respondents with low incomes, people with higher education and workers in the private sector”6 (Citation). It is the presence of posttraumatic motivation (or its absence) underlying the value orientations manifested by the respondent that serves as a criterion for categorizing a person into one or another social type.

Discussion

Let us consider in detail the features of social personality types as “avoiding individual” and “selffulfilling individual”. For this purpose, we should turn to the socio-psychological characteristics of value types, which were obtained with the help of a wide range of well-known techniques: the Life Orientation Test (LOT), the Self-Actualization Test (SAT), the Subjective Control Level Questionnaire (SCQ), the Self-Relationship Questionnaire (SRQ), the 16-factor Personality Questionnaire (16PF), the Minnesota Multidimensional Personality Inventory (MMPI), etc. (Yanitskiy, 2020). The author used various random and non-random samples; the total number of respondents was about 10,000 people.

With the help of cluster analysis, three psychological types were identified, which represent different systems of value orientations: “adapting” type (orientations: health, material security, “freedom from”, entertainment) – 29% of respondents, “socializing” type (respectively, family, career, social recognition) – 46% and “individualizing” type (self-actualization, creativity, “freedom for”, tolerance) – 25%. At the same time, the representatives of the “adapting” type are characterized by high anxiety and frustration tension; the “socializing” type is characterized by conformity, dependence and externality; the “individualizing” type has such features as high life meaningfulness, internality and positive selfconcept (Yanitskiy, 2020, p. 197).

Judging by the above-mentioned psychological features forming value orientations, the social personality type “avoiding individual” is manifested through “adapting” and “socializing” types of value orientations, “self-fulfilling individual” – “individualizing”. We should say that in our society there are not so many people who have avoided socio-cultural (psychological) traumatization both in the process of early socialization and in their subsequent life. Therefore, in empirical analysis the share of representatives of the “avoiding individual” type in most cases will always be greater than the share of carriers of the “fulfilling individual” type; it is not by chance that this social type is described by the characteristics of the two above-mentioned value clusters (together comprising 75% of respondents).

Based on the data presented in the cited work (as well as a number of previous publications by M.S. Yanitskiy and his colleagues), where the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) and the Semantic Time Differential (STD) methodology are used, we can conclude that the carriers of the social type “avoiding individual” tend, often unconsciously, to reject their past and present, and often their future as well. On the contrary, the social type “self-fulfilling individual” , as a rule, highly evaluates their past. Meanwhile, the meaningfulness of “the past is the most important for the favorable experience of the consequences of the transferred stress...” (Yanitskiy, 2020), under the permanent influence of which is the “avoiding individual”.

Based on empirical research, we revealed that the “adapting” type in the long term is oriented to high income, career and family creation; “socializing” – to high income, career and education; “individualizing” – to education, selfimprovement and creativity (Yanitskiy, 2020).

Psychological features of regulation of social behavior of representatives of the adapting value type include motivation based on fear, following norms to avoid punishment. Antisocial behavior is not unacceptable and can be implemented if the risk of exposure is assessed as low. For representatives of the “socializing” type, the basic mechanism of social control is shame, following the norms accepted in the group to avoid condemnation from significant others. If the reference group is asocial or antisocial, there is a high probability of deviant and delinquent behavior. On the contrary, the “individualizing” type has internal regulation of behavior, internalization of social norms. The main mechanism of behavior regulation is guilt, adherence to accepted norms and rules (Yanitskiy, 2020, p. 199).

Important features of behavior in the economic sphere of the “adapting” type include the priority of material well-being. The feeling of lack of money is typical, illegal ways of enrichment are acceptable.

Money and property are perceived as a source of well-being and pleasure. Representatives of the “socializing” type associate material well-being with high social status. Exposure to advertising is characteristic. Orientation to the acquisition of expensive and prestigious things is typical. In contrast to the previous two types, for the representatives of the “individualizing” type, material security is instrumental, acting primarily as a means of education and self-development. Money is associated with freedom and with the possibility of self-fulfillment (Yanitskiy, 2020).

According to the survey conducted by VCIOM in December 2022 on a sample representing the Russian population aged 14 to 35, two orientations dominate in the mass consciousness of young people by a large margin: “a high level of well-being” (58%) and “to live peacefully, working and taking care of the family” (54%)7.

As we can see, based on their life orientations, the majority of representatives of modern Russian youth can be referred to the type of “avoiding individual” .

Orphans living in various state institutions belong to one of the social groups in a state of sociocultural and psychological trauma, persistent frustration and exclusion. In fact, they are a kind of “micro-model” of the trauma society. It is logical to assume that the social type of personality “avoiding individual” prevails among them .

Psychological research conducted among this category of adolescents (using M. Rokeach’s methods “Terminal and Instrumental Values”, as well as the method of associations) showed that, in general, their highly significant values are “love, materially secure life, happy family life, having good and loyal friends, pleasure” (Yakovleva, 2021). Moreover, they assigned the highest rank to the terminal value “materially secure life” – 96%.

Only 12% of orphans have meaningful goals with a time perspective. Against the background of a low overall life meaningfulness index, this may mean that the goals are not supported by the readiness to bear responsibility for their realization; 36% of orphans have goals limited to the actual present, in other words, they live with the concerns of today (Yakovleva, 2021, p. 123).

These data clearly correspond with the results of a research conducted among the Russian population on a representative sample (n = 700), according to which half of “the population does not have an explicit goal and an embodied image of their own future” (Karacharovsky, Shkaratan, 2019, p. 8). Those who have formulated their life goals “are dominated by the issue of improving housing conditions, associated with the tasks of multiplying real estate” (Karacharovsky, Shkaratan, 2019, p. 9). Meanwhile, in psychological terms, the orientation to the value of “housing” is largely a manifestation of a person’s inner anxiety and their unmet need for security.

Hence, it logically follows the conclusion that in the Russian trauma society the social type of personality “avoiding individual” prevails. One of its characteristics is a tendency to ward suffering, high anxiety. The study by A.A. Mironova and A.N. Tatarko used data from the Sixth Wave of the World Value Survey. Three groups of countries (15 in total) were selected based on the corruption perception index: with low, medium and high levels of corruption (Russia is among the latter). The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling. It was revealed that the level of suffering measured through anxiety indicators (macro-and micro-anxiety) has a significant relationship with the acceptability of corruption (Mironova, Tatarko, 2021). Accordingly, one of the effects of the widespread prevalence of this social personality type in contemporary Russia is the ineffective fight against corruption.

To effectively analyze the social personality types existing in modern Russia, it is advisable to expand the range of theoretical and methodological bases used for this purpose. Thus, the analysis of the state of antinomianism of public consciousness in post-Soviet Russia, the coexistence in it in almost all directions of two mutually exclusive positions, which to the same extent (or approximately in the same proportion) claim to be true (Toshchenko, 2015, p. 17, 39), requires the use of suitable approaches. Yu.M. Pasovets showed the possibilities of using two-member politomyth as an effective methodological tool of sociological research (Pasovets, 2023). Unfortunately, she neglected the application of the Chinese principle of “yin-yang”, which would be logical, since it expresses, among other things, the use of polytomy. This principle allows using alternative discourses for different interpretations of the meaning of social phenomena and processes8.

Obviously, it would be logical to rely on the yin-yang methodological approach also because, according to D. Chimenson et al. it allows reflecting more adequately the deep complexities of Russian culture. Taking into account the materials of representative cross-cultural studies, the authors justifiably prove that the “existing studies of Russian culture using the dominant multidimensional cultural theory (e.g., Hofstede) are unable to capture the dynamics of cultural values manifested in Russian business and society” (Chimenson et al., 2022). These conclusions directly correspond to an important methodological thesis formulated by Zh.T. Toshchenko: “Russia is a traumatized society, which is characterized by contradictory, mutually exclusive orientations and attitudes” (Toshchenko, 2015, p. 50).

We should not overlook the fact that in contemporary foreign sociology and related disciplines there is an appeal to the study and use of Chinese scientific methodology, in particular, the yin-yang principle. For example, D.A. Palmer raises the issue of the almost complete absence of China in research as a source of materials for the construction of theoretical concepts and models in dominant sociology and anthropology (Palmer, 2022). As we know, there is Confucian sociology, which, according to L. Young-chan, can become a link between East Asian sociology based on Eastern ideas and the world sociology currently led by Western sociology (Young-chan, 2010).

There are a number of studies in the field of social and cultural values analysis that use this approach. For instance, T. Fang, “drawing on the traditional Chinese yin-yang philosophy, conceptualizes culture as having inherently paradoxical value orientations, which allows it to encompass the opposite features of any given cultural dimension” (Fang, 2012, p. 25). K. Kyong-Dong uses the classical East Asian yin-yang dialectic to interpret the meaning of the central theoretical principles of social change, modernization and development also; according to the author, it is one of the most influential lines of thought in both Confucianism and Taoism (Kyong-Dong, 2017). The thesis according to which the concept of yin-yang can be considered as a way of sociological explanation that allows combining Eastern and Western research approaches is quite popular (Redding, 2017).

Undoubtedly, the use of this model is not currently mainstream in modern Western sociology, but it is hardly advisable to reject its prospective application. Russia’s geopolitical “turn to the East” requires a more attentive attitude toward the conceptual approaches of neighboring countries, implemented in sociological science. In general, we can state that the trauma society theory, as well as the concept of anthroposociocultural (anthropocietal) approach, has a deep, yet undiscovered heuristic potential (largely due to the possibility of interdisciplinary analysis), including in the field of studying the social personality types formed by it.

Conclusion

Promising research trends

Thus, based on the analysis we can put forward a theoretical position, according to which the social personality type expresses the basic strategy of interaction between a person and society, the concept of which was proposed by N.I. Lapin. Contemporary Russia as a trauma society is characterized by the dynamic coexistence of two basic personality types: “avoiding individual” and “self-fulfilling individual” . In our opinion, the various manifestations of the “avoiding individual” type include, in our opinion, the seven phantom personality types identified by Zh.T. Toshchenko on the basis of such indicators as “power, capital and fame, taking into account the socio-psychological features of personality”, characteristic of the elite groups of the trauma society (Toshchenko, 2015, pp. 10–11). Judging by the data of empirical studies, the personality type “avoidant individual” quantitatively prevails among the population of the country.

It is logical to assume that representatives of this type, due to their desire for means of overcoming (displacing) negative experiences, will more often have a higher social and economic status compared to those individuals who belong to the “self-fulfilling individual” type.

It is worth noting that these types are not the only ones in the palette of personality types of modern Russian society, but supplement the existing typologies, which are distinguished on other grounds. The ratio of personality types “selffulfilling individual” and “avoiding individual” can serve as one of the empirical indicators of the degree of traumatization of society. Accordingly, the areas of application of the present research results are in theoretical terms the development of sociological theories of personality, sociology of culture, sociology of management, sociology of social change. The applied significance of our developments is expressed in the possibility of using this typology as a means of assessing the effects of traumatic changes in different periods of time both in one country and in different countries of the world. Further study of the distribution of such personality types in different social groups and classes in Russia is also of considerable practical interest.

It seems that the above scientific results can be used as a basis for the concept of “social personality typology in the trauma society”.