Speaking about what qualities are required for one to become rich, most respondents pointed out intelligence (54% of respondents), unscrupulousness (30%) and an entrepreneurial spirit (25%), Forbes reports citing the study: Portrait of a Capital Owner in Russia.
"Russians believe that for a person to achieve financial success, they must have both vividly positive qualities (analytical mindset, perspicacity, the ability to think outside the box and strategically) and vividly negative one (unscrupulousness, the ability to disregard other people's goals, the tendency to see only their own benefit in everything) coexisting within them equally," SKOLKOVO Wealth Transformation Centre Advisor Alexey Anishchenko explained.
Alexey Anishchenko noted that this sharply contrasts with the image that rich people themselves try to portray to the outside world: if in the media a capital owner appears as an active person, not indifferent to societal problems and doing something to influence public projects, including through philanthropic activities, then in the public consciousness, a wealthy person always has negative traits and is not perceived as a role model, but his or her actions are taken as a guide on how to conduct affairs.
An almost equal number of Russians have either positive or negative perceptions of the rich and wealthy; 47% of the respondents view them favourably, while 53% view them in bad light. 20% of the respondents express an unconditionally positive attitude, which is more than those having a sharply negative one at 19%. At that, 27% and 35% respectively express a moderately positive and moderately negative attitude towards wealthy people.
Earlier, experts of the SKOLKOVO Wealth Transformation Centre noted that over the past decade and a half, Russians have become more responsible for their own efforts and well-being, despite the fact that the level of their aspirations has not changed.
