Specifics of autobiographical narrative across net generation, perestroika and reforms generation, and Soviet generation

Abstract

Social changes have made life more complex for different members of society leading to challenges such as generational misunderstandings and insufficient socialization of older generations in today’s environment. The article explores the specifics of autobiographical discourse across three generations: the net generation, the perestroika and reforms generation, and the Soviet generation. Using a survey and the Psychological Autobiography tool developed by E. Y. Korzhova, we analyzed the responses by categorizing them into six groups. Among them are childhood, personal experiences, family, losses, and political events. The hypothesis guiding this study was that autobiographical narratives reflect psychological traits specific to each generation. The sample included three generations: the net generation (average age 19), the perestroika and reform generation (average age 46), and the Soviet generation (average age 70). To identify significant differences between the groups, the statistical analysis incorporated Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. The findings revealed that personal and family-related events were the most commonly mentioned across all the three generations. At the same time, the importance of personal achievements decreases with age, while family memories become more central, both in retrospection and anticipation. Childhood memories are especially important for the perestroika and reform generation, while the net generation and the Soviet generation reference them less frequently. The theme of past losses appears in autobiographical narratives of all the three generations. However, despite their age, the Soviet generation do not mention losses in relation to the future, suggesting a possible social taboo surrounding this topic. Overall, positive events were more often recalled than the negative ones. The perestroika generation, in particular, highlighted work-related experiences. A possible reason is that the net generation have not yet fully immersed itself in professional life or perceive their current job as only temporary and not offering professional fulfillment, while the Soviet generation have already completed their career. Finally, political events were of the most interest to the Soviet generation, while the net generation showed almost no interest whatsoever.