Changes in Success Attribution: Age, Period, and Generational Differences
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2026.1.3106Keywords:
attribution of success, luck and hard work, change in social attitudes, generational differences, age differences, cohort analysisAbstract
The current article examines temporal, age, and generational differences in attribution of success to personal hard work or luck. Despite the social and psychological effects of these attitudes, their dynamics and determinants remain understudied, whereas existing research, including analyses of related concepts, provide inconclusive results. Furthermore, an additional challenge lies in disentangling age, generational, and contextual effects. Based on the data from two surveys of the Russian Socio-Economic Panel (RUSSET) from 1993 and 2024, the current study demonstrates evidence of all three effects. The results indicate a significant increase in the belief in the importance of hard work and a decrease in the belief in the importance of luck across all cohorts, except for those born between 1966 and 1975. Individuals whose youth coincided with the transitional period of the 1990s, i.e. born between 1966 and 1975, demonstrate a greater belief in luck in both time periods compared to other cohorts. Additionally, ordinal logistic regression, used in cross-sectional and time-sequential analyses, shows a greater belief in the importance of hard work among current youth compared to the youth of the 1990s, as well as the disappearance of the age effects among the late-Soviet and post-Soviet generations.
Acknowledgements. The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project “Life course, values, expectations of the generation entering the adult life in 1990s”. Grant No 23-18-00635.
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