Pozdniakova M.E., Bryuno V.V. The Transformation of Deviant Behavior in the Context of Social Anxiety in Contemporary Russian Society ...

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Abstract

This article examines changes in the nature of deviant behavior in contemporary Russia against the backdrop of persistently high levels of structural instability and social anxiety. The study is based on multiple waves of online surveys conducted between 2013 and 2024 among urban residents by the Department of Sociology of Deviant Behavior at the Institute of Sociology, FCTAS RAS. The analysis focuses on emotional states, adaptation strategies, and the transformation of attitudes and everyday practices related to the use or rejection of alcohol and drugs, as well as the acceptance or rejection of aggression. Six emotional profiles were identified-apathetic-bored, aggressive, anxiety-stress, melancholic, positiveresourceful, and balanced – each ref lecting stable combinations of subjective experiences and enabling the correlation of emotional states with patterns of behavioral responses to social challenges. Resourceful states are associated with constructive coping strategies, whereas anxious, apathetic, and aggressive profiles tend to correlate with compensatory and avoidant-destructive behaviors. Despite the outward stability of attitudes toward sobriety and the rejection of drugs, latent forms of substance use and permissiveness persist, particularly in vulnerable clusters with low access to resources and social support. The shifting boundaries of acceptable behavior with regard to aggression are especially evident in domestic and online communication, where physical and verbal violence are increasingly tolerated as part of «normal» interaction. The observed stratification of behavioral strategies and permissive attitudes suggests that beneath a surface of formal stability and positive trends lies a hidden field of risk, linked to the erosion of moral boundaries, the gradual normalization of certain deviant forms, their habituation in everyday practices, and the weakening of collective mechanisms for processing anxiety. These findings raise the need to reconsider the concepts of norm and deviance in the context of cultural transformation and growing emotional vulnerability.