Рsychological correlates of work addiction risk among adult working Russians

The work was supported by RFH (project 13-06-18012). The paper is based on the field research of work addiction, which was made in different regions of Russia in 2013. During the research personal ideas of adult Russians from different regions concerning their life were collected (methods of observation, interview and a number of tests were used). 323 persons (66 male and 257 female Russians) from 17 to 67 years old (М=33; a=11,078) from different Russian cities (Tomsk, Seversk, Kargasok, Bakchar, Tyumen, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara, Novokuibyshevsk, Dzerzhinsk, Kemerovo, Leninsk-Kuznetskiy, Novokuznetsk, Mezhdurechensk, Prokopyevsk, Tisul, Krasnoyarsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Elizovo, Yakutsk, Ridder, Rubtsovsk) took part in the field research in 2013. The aim of the research was to collect the data which would give the opportunity to perfect the existing approach to the self-identity problem, thinking metamorphose, human potential loss (work addiction, e.g.). This approach is based on the methodology of thinking experience transtemporal interpretation and self-identity analysis as a condition of maintaining stability by a human being in social variation and social development. This paper presents the results of correlation analysis of the available data. The analysis we made proves the hypothesis that work addiction risk in Russia is connected with wrong ideas of people about the place of work in their life, the rise of aloofness from nature, the weakening of personality (the lowering of resilience) and uncertainty in close relationships. The results allow us to perfect the existing approach to work addiction risk studies and to elaborate practical measures to correct work addiction and human potential in whole. The work addiction scale brings to light a small percentage of people with the high level of risk. But psychological factors which correlate with the high level of work addiction allow us to suppose that in reality the situation is much more serious than we think. We believe that the features that appear earlier than the obvious features of work addiction (such as narrowing and impoverishment of ideas about the dynamics and completeness of life, narrowing of time horizons, simplification of life, etc) should be taken into account.

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