Dataset Information

Understanding Collective Discontents: A Psychological Approach to Measuring Zeitgeist.

ABSTRACT: Over the last decade, several countries around the world developed a collective sense of doom and gloom: Their Zeitgeist could be characterized as one of decline. Paradoxically, in some countries, such as the Netherlands, this collective discontent with society seems to exist despite high levels of individual well-being. Current psychological research informs us about why individuals would feel unduly optimistic, but does not account for a collective sense of decline. The present research develops a novel operationalization of Zeitgeist, referred to as a general factor Z. We conceptualize Zeitgeist as a collective global-level evaluation of the state (and future) of society. Three studies confirm that perceptions of the same societal problems at the personal and collective level differed strongly. Across these studies we found support for a hypothesized latent factor Z, underlying collective-level perceptions of society. This Z-factor predicted people's interpretation of new information about society that was presented through news stories. These results provide a first step in operationalizing and (ultimately) understanding the concept of Zeitgeist: collectively shared ideas about society. Implications for policy are discussed.

SUBMITTER: van der Bles AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4482588 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Understanding Collective Discontents: A Psychological Approach to Measuring Zeitgeist.

van der Bles Anne Marthe AM Postmes Tom T Meijer Rob R RR

PloS one 20150626 6

Over the last decade, several countries around the world developed a collective sense of doom and gloom: Their Zeitgeist could be characterized as one of decline. Paradoxically, in some countries, such as the Netherlands, this collective discontent with society seems to exist despite high levels of individual well-being. Current psychological research informs us about why individuals would feel unduly optimistic, but does not account for a collective sense of decline. The present research develo ...[more]

PMID: 26114943

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Project description:Background: A growing number of global health interventions involve community members in activism to prevent violence against women (VAW), but the psychological drivers of participation are presently ill-understood. We developed a new scale for measuring three proposed drivers of participation in collective action to address VAW in the context of urban informal settlements in Mumbai, India: perceived legitimacy, perceived efficacy, and collective action norms. Methods: We did a household survey of 1307 men, 1331 women, and 4 trans persons. We checked for 1) social desirability bias by comparing responses to self-administered and face-to-face interviews, 2) acquiescence bias by comparing responses to positive and negatively worded items on the same construct, 3) factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis, and 4) convergent validity by examining associations between construct scores and participation in groups to address VAW and intent to intervene in case of VAW. Results: Of the ten items, seven showed less than five percentage point difference in agreement rates between self-administered and face-to-face conditions. Correlations between opposite worded items on the same construct were negative (p<0.05), while correlations between similarly worded items were positive (p<0.001). A hierarchical factor structure showed adequate fit (Tucker-Lewis index, 0.920; root mean square error of approximation, 0.035; weighted root mean square residual, 1.952). Perceived legitimacy, efficacy and collective action norms all predicted participation in groups to address VAW and intent to intervene in case of VAW, even after adjusting for social capital (p<0.05). Conclusion: This is the first study to operationalize a measure of the psychological drivers of participation in collective action to address VAW in a low- and middle-income context. Our novel scale may provide insight into modifiable beliefs and attitudes community mobilisation interventions can address to inspire activism in similar low-resource contexts.

Dataset Information

Understanding Collective Discontents: A Psychological Approach to Measuring Zeitgeist.

Publications

Understanding Collective Discontents: A Psychological Approach to Measuring Zeitgeist.

Similar Datasets

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