Abstract
Millions of people worldwide are affected by dramatic social change (DSC). While sociological theory aims to understand its precipitants, the psychological consequences remain poorly understood. A large-scale literature review pointed to the desperate need for a typology of social change that might guide theory and research toward a better understanding of the psychology of social change. Over 5,000 abstracts from peer-reviewed articles were assessed from sociological and psychological publications. Based on stringent inclusion criteria, a final 325 articles were used to construct a novel, multi-level typology designed to conceptualize and categorize social change in terms of its psychological threat to psychological well-being. The typology of social change includes four social contexts: Stability, Inertia, Incremental Social Change and, finally, DSC. Four characteristics of DSC were further identified: the pace of social change, rupture to the social structure, rupture to the normative structure, and the level of threat to one's cultural identity. A theoretical model that links the characteristics of social change together and with the social contexts is also suggested. The typology of social change as well as our theoretical proposition may serve as a foundation for future investigations and increase our understanding of the psychologically adaptive mechanisms used in the wake of DSC.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Cor Baerveldt, University of Alberta, Canada Vlad Petre Glaveanu, Aalborg University, Denmark Vinai Norasakkunkit, Gonzaga University, USA
The typology of social change as well as our theoretical proposition may serve as a foundation for future investigations and increase our understanding of the psychologically adaptive mechanisms used in the wake of dramatic social change (DSC)
The goal of the present paper is to argue that psychology needs to focus on the psychology of social change
Summary
OF CURRENT RESEARCH AND CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SOCIAL CHANGE IN SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. A more comprehensive theory of social change capable of accounting for stability, inertia as well as incremental and DSC is required to fully understand the psychological processes and ramifications of social change. Whether one conceptualizes social change from a functionalist theory, a social identity theory, or a developmental theory perspective, most researchers from these distinctive fields point to the pace of change as one pivotal and essential element that characterizes DSC. I had one main goal: selecting and identifying the necessary characteristics of DSC that could either be present or not in other social contexts (i.e., stability, inertia, and incremental social change). Scientists refer to the characteristics in two different ways: (1) formally, when defining or describing DSC, incremental social change, stability, or inertia, and (2) informally, when introducing their research on social change. As for the other three social contexts (stability, inertia, and incremental social change), 2For space limitation, all methodological details and steps I encountered are not discussed here, but are available upon request to the author
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