"We are Russians” (Associative Ethnic Images of Young St. Petersburg Residents)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of ethnic identity of young people of Russian nationality (on the example of St. Petersburg), by means of associative method (verbal and non-verbal projections). The study found that the ethnic identity of Russians was positive in nature, which was revealed by both verbal and non-verbal associations. Men’s ethnic identity is much stronger than that of women, which is particularly evident in verbal images. This applies to both positive and negative opinions of social nature. The social character of men’s ethnic identity allows us to speak of its transition to the national stage of development, while “female” identity has predominantly ethnocultural orientation. Ethnic images, both verbal and especially non-verbal, are traditional, patriarchal and oriented to the past. The images are stereotypical, firm and weakly subject to dynamics, as evidenced by the similarity of associations in studies of 2001, 2009, 2016 and 2019. The associative method in the form of open questions with subsequent content analysis of characteristics, as well as incomplete proposals, allows us to look beyond controlled reflection, affecting the unrecognized mechanisms of formation of ethnic images.