Toward a Psychology of Social Change: A Typology of Social Change

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.

Rethinking current models in social psychology: A Bayesian framework to understand dramatic social change

“…To the best of our knowledge, the term social change first appeared about seventy years ago in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in an article that was entitled Psychology of Social Change (Marquis, ). After this article, there have been few attempts to revive both the concept and the study of social change in the field of psychology (e.g., Pizer & Travers, ; Schneiderman, ; see de la Sablonnière, ).…”

“…As such, it is unclear what are the macro‐level variables of change, or even the type of change itself, that demand adaptation. While a few social psychology theories have examined social change and defined it more broadly (see de la Sablonnière, ), these attempts remain the exception; the rule in social psychology is to reduce the operationalization of social change to its bare minimum. This reductionist approach disables social psychology from truly studying the different dimensions of social change, along with how individual group members adapt to these changes.…”

“…Such a definition has recently been attempted by de la Sablonnière (). After reviewing more than 5,000 abstracts (and 325 papers) and identifying the main characteristics of DSC discussed in the psychological and sociological literature, a typology of social change was developed.…”

“…By identifying the four characteristics of DSC that are agreed upon in the literature, the systematic review (de la Sablonnière, ) represents the first step towards better understanding the psychology of social change. More specifically, the review offers a concrete framework that allows researchers to better understand the meaning of DSC and its consequences.…”

“…More specifically, we offer a method that would allow social psychology researchers to infer the actual social context (or societal state) when an event occurs. Inspired by a probabilistic decision tree model in the context of a recent review of the literature of social change (de la Sablonnière, ), we propose a novel framework to measure and assess the probability that one of four identified societal states (DSC, incremental social change, inertia, and stability; see Table ) will occur given an external event. Following the presentation of the proposed probabilistic tree, we will examine how our scientific reasoning based on a Bayesian framework is a non‐conventional method in social psychology that may stimulate rethinking current models of social change.…”