Value Orientations and Optimism as Factors of Psychological Well-Being of Students in the Russian Federation

This article explores value orientations and optimism as factors of psychological wellbeing of Russian students in the context of contemporary times. The social instability of the first half of the 2020s forms a demand from both society and scientific communities to understand the mechanisms of formation and maintenance of psychological well-being of the individual. We consider value orientations and optimism as stable personal constructs that are formed in the process of socialization of the individual and certainly have an impact on psychological well-being. In this study we compared the level of expression of various value orientations and optimism in ranked groups of low, medium and high indicators of life satisfaction, self-esteem, self-efficacy and subjective happiness. For comparison we used the method of assessing the reliability of differences of mean values – Kruskal–Wallis H test, then we compared the average indicators of the level of expression of value orientations and optimism among the representatives of different ranked groups by various indicators, assessed the dynamics of changes in the transition from “ unhappy” to “happy” ranked group, and verification of the obtained data by one-factor analysis of variance using Waller-Duncan and Games-Howell criteria. The results show that the level of expression of certain value orientations contributes to a greater extent to the psychological well-being of Russian students, and that optimism is a highly important factor in the psychological well-being of Russian students. The most significant factors among the studied factors revealed by comparing rank groups with low, average and high indicators of life satisfaction, self-esteem, self-efficacy and subjective happiness are: “optimistic style of explanation”; “traditions”; “security-societal”. The least significant value orientations from the studied ones, revealed when comparing rank groups with low, average and high indicators of life satisfaction, self-esteem, self-efficacy and subjective happiness: “conformity-interpersonal”; “humility”; “power-resources”; “powerdominance” and “reputation”