The Psychology of Anomie

Abstract

In sociology, anomie refers to a state of society characterized by chaos, the eroding of socialregulation and moral values. Drawing upon recent developments in psychology, this thesis presentsan analysis of anomie as a psychological construct. More specifically, this thesis aims to develop: a)a psychological conceptualization of anomie, b) a psycho-social analysis of the processes throughwhich anomie leads to psychological outcomes, c) a social psychological conceptualization ofindividuals’ responses to a high anomie contexts, d) a valid and reliable scale to measure anomie,and e) a cross-cultural examination of predictions that are derived from our conceptual frameworkof anomie.First, we present a historical overview of theoretical and empirical work on anomie (Chapter2). The historical overview helps us to identify the contentious areas and longstanding problems inanomie literature requiring further development. We extend the theorizing on anomie by developinga psychological conceptualization of anomie (Chapter 3). As a psychological construct, we defineanomie as the collective subjective perception about the state of society encompassing twoconditions: the breakdown of social fabric (i.e., lack of trust and moral decline) and the breakdownin leadership (i.e., lack of legitimacy and effectiveness). This third chapter also examinesindividuals’ responses to anomie. This is important to overcome the limitations of existing literaturewhich typically conflates anomie with its outcomes. We argue that the primary psychological effectof anomie is the failure to satisfy four fundamental human needs including a need for a meaningfullife, a need for self-esteem, a need to belong, and a need to have a sense of personal and collectivecontrol.We argue that there are two key responses to an anomic situation: a contraction of thepersonal self and a contraction of the social self. Contraction of personal self describes thedetrimental consequences of anomie for personal well-being and the way it propels individuals toadopt control-restoring strategies such as authoritarianism. Contraction of social self refers towithdrawal from, and disidentification with, the superordinate group, thereby influencing the wayindividuals engage and interact with their social world. We argue that contraction of social selfmanifests itself as tribalism, a response whereby individuals withdraw from superordinate groups(trust becomes bounded) and turn to smaller groups on which they project familial ties.In order to enable an empirical examination of the conceptual framework of the psychology ofanomie, we first develop a new measure, Perception of Anomie Scale (PAS, see Chapter 4). Weoperationalize anomie as a perception of the state of society encompassing two dimensions:perceived breakdown of social fabric and perceived breakdown of leadership. We present theevidence for the validity of the newly developed scale of PAS across six studies. Studies 1a (N =199, first year psychology students from Australia) and 1b (N = 214, employees from the US) provide evidence for the proposed factor structure and internal consistency of PAS. Resultsconfirmed a two-factor structure and the scale had satisfactory psychometric reliability and validity.Studies 2a-c (N = 149 employees from the US, 617 community members from Australia, and 285employees from the US, respectively) provide evidence of convergent and discriminant validity.Finally, in a cross-cultural study assessing PAS in 28 countries from 5 continents (N = 6112), weshow that PAS correlates with national indicators of societal functioning and that PAS predictsnational identification and well-being (Studies 3a & 3b).Having developed the PAS scale, we next focus on an underdeveloped aspect of the anomieconstruct in the literature by examining the effect of anomie on contraction of social self,particularly tribalism (Chapter 5). Across three studies in Australia (N = 617, communitymembers), the US (N = 93, employees), and Iran (N = 61, university students), we show thatanomie is related to tribalism indicators, including higher bounded trust and a projection of familialties onto smaller social circles.Overall, our theoretical development of anomie and its empirical research contribute to theliterature in two important ways (see Chapter 6). First, both the theoretical and the empirical workclarify ambiguities that have existed in the anomie literature such as the longstanding problem thatoperationalizations of the concept typically mix the measurement of anomie and its psychologicalconsequences. Second, our psychological analysis of anomie represents an important first step toextend psychological theorizing to contexts where the stability of the social structure at large cannotbe assumed. Our analysis of anomie, which develops a link between the socio-structural context andassociated psychological outcomes, provides a basis from which to engage with and understandsocieties that are characterized by chaos and instability.