Folk theory of social change |
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| Authors: | Yoshihisa Kashima Paul Bain Nick Haslam Kim Peters Simon Laham Jennifer Whelan Brock Bastian Stephen Loughnan Leah Kaufmann Julian Fernando |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria,;2. Department of Psychology, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia;3. and;4. Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK |
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| Abstract: | People have a folk theory of social change (FTSC). A typical Western FTSC stipulates that as a society becomes more industrialized, it undergoes a natural course of social change, in which a communal society marked by communal relationships becomes a qualitatively different, agentic society where market‐based exchange relationships prevail. People use this folk theory to predict a society's future and estimate its past, to understand contemporary cross‐cultural differences, and to make decisions about social policies. Nonetheless, the FTSC is not particularly consistent with the existing cross‐cultural research on industrialization and cultural differences, and needs to be examined carefully. |
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| Keywords: | culture folk theory individualism stereotype |
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