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 s

SUBMITTER: van der Bles AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4482588 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature