Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

Media

Part of Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

Title

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

extracted text

Coping with Perceived Chances and
Risks Associated with Social Change
RAINER K. SILBEREISEN

Abstract
Social change in the form of political transformation in the context of globalization
and individualization is prevalent worldwide. Such change can occur gradually or
abruptly and not always as part of people’s conscious experience. In such situations, features of the broader ecological contexts in which people live moderate the
process of coping. Successfully coping affects well-being and other psychosocial outcomes and in most, but not all instances, requires active engagement, development
of a sense of control and capitalizing on proximate social and personal resources.
Future research should emphasize cross-national study of objective and subjective
outcomes, and the relationships between demands (broadly defined), varieties of
mechanisms for coping, and the full range of personal and social resources available
for doing so. The aim of such research must be to inform social policies designed to
empower people’s sense of personal agency and aligned with relevant changes in
opportunity structures.

Changes of the societal order affecting human life have happened throughout history, although in recent times such change may have accelerated
(Rosa, 2013). Social change can emerge gradually and therefore not necessarily be part of all people’s own conscious experience, like the change of
belief systems, but it can also happen in a rapid and comprehensive fashion,
such as social revolutions everybody experiences. Often both types are
interlocked—the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of
the communist world order, for instance, were rapid and comprehensive,
but developments in the following years were overlaid by the emerging
consequences of globalization and other worldwide issues, such as the 2007
economic crisis.

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

WHAT IS INTRIGUING ABOUT THE TOPIC OF SOCIAL CHANGE?
The specific case of social change we deal with in this essay is the combination of political and economic change that occurred in many European
countries that had for decades either been under the influence of communist
regimes, or were hit by challenges rooted in precarious economic development. After 1990, experiences in post-Soviet states, like those of the Baltic,
made it clear that radical changes of the institutional order and the economic
system have both losers and winners. As Titma and Tuma (2005) showed,
psychological resources played a role in deciding the fate of people soon after
societal change, such as their level of self-efficacy prior to the regime change.
Where levels were high, individuals were able to deal more successfully with
the breakup of institutions by taking the initiative and making a living by
own economic activities instead of waiting for a recovery of the occupational
opportunities they were used to.
When looking at people affected by the change of societal institutions, probably the most prominent common denominator is the experience of uncertainties, meaning that new expectations concerning individual’s behavior
are often not transparent and/or one lacks the means to deal with the new
challenges. Dealing with uncertainties, like how to accept individual responsibility for one’s occupational development by people who were used to the
scaffold of strict regulations by the state, requires resources one cannot gain
instantly and necessitates drawing on personal attributes and experiences
from one’s past life, which of course varies, as the example of self-efficacy
shows.
Individual agency is critical to the study of adjustment to rapid social
change. Individuals differ in their adaptability to a new societal order.
For instance, younger people (emerging adults) are notably more flexible
in terms of adaptability to new societal values because they are less constrained by an occupational pathway or the responsibility for a family.
Further, people differ in basic personality dimensions that appear to be
of particular relevance in times of social change, such as exploration and
openness (Kashdan & Silvia, 2009).
Psychological research needs to address the role of such agency factors, but
with a strong emphasis on the moderating role of the opportunity structures
in regions where people live. The change after the breakdown of the communist order did affect individuals’ lives, but not in a direct way. Rather, its effect
was through changing social contexts, such as changes in the economy from
state-owned to private enterprises, or changes in major institutions of political representation and law. People have to procure information and advice
for a new portfolio of behavior patterns, like how to apply for a job by presenting oneself in a way that is suitable for the new situation, from prototypes

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

3

embedded in the given context, such as role models for adequate behavior in
economically precarious regions. In addressing such issues psychology was
weak because for too long it was not “ecology-minded” (Oishi, 2014) and
had overlooked the importance of opportunities and contexts and how they
interact with individuals’ agency.
Being faced with uncertainties is an aversive experience (Westerhof &
Keyes, 2006), and attempting to resolve the situation requires resources, cognitive and motivational, that may be challenged already by the uncertainties
because they also signal a loss of resources, namely, the established ways of
exercising control over one’s life. If the uncertainties related to social change
people experience in their life refer to developmental tasks nobody can
avoid, like undergoing educational training for a future occupation, they
have to deal with the uncertainties and find a resolution.
Although uncertainties like those rooted in shattered career expectations
are not the common stress-inducing distinct negative events such as unemployment, research demonstrated that feeling threatened or concerned that
such events may happen have the same, and sometimes even stronger, effect
on various indicators of well-being (Clark, 2003). We should bear in mind
that well-being may also be an antecedent to further positive outcomes
concerning social behavior, income, and health (De Neve, Diener, Tay, &
Xuereb, 2014).
In sum, because social change is a ubiquitous fact of life, for better or for
worse, and because it may have negative consequences for well-being and
many other psychosocial outcomes, further research is needed that clarifies
the interplay between personal and contextual conditions of successful coping with the changes. Beyond its relevance for new insights in the psychology
of particular context–person interactions, this research is also likely to provide evidence relevant for policies addressing the big issues of social change
in our societies.
SELECT RESULTS OF OUR RECENT RESEARCH ON SOCIAL CHANGE
Early research on the effects of postsocialist changes in Europe and Asia
followed a design that compared samples gathered at different stages of
the transformation process, meant to represent indirectly the changing
conditions for individual behavior and development. The pivotal research
was conducted by Kohn and his colleagues (Kohn, 2006). They found that
the social change in countries of Eastern Europe gradually lead to positive
associations, reminiscent of what was known from capitalist industrial
organization, between the higher opportunity for self-directed work among
employees higher in the hierarchy of production and higher levels of
flexibility as personality characteristic. In our own past research, we used

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

a similar period comparison around the time of German unification and
found that changes in social institutions regulating education, training, and
work had an almost immediate effect on biographical transitions, such as the
postponement of first occupational plans, which were now the responsibility
of the individual instead of the state, resulting in practically equal timing in
East and West (Silbereisen, Reitzle, & Juang, 2002).
Of course, such results did not apply to everybody because not everybody
was affected to the same degree by new expectations and related uncertainties. This observation lead us to pursue a different research strategy that put
the new “demands” (the perception of growing uncertainties in major life
domains) of social change as well as its benefits at the center, accompanied
by concepts that address how people deal with the demands. We were not
the first to address perceptions of social change. For instance, Kim (2008)
assessed subjective appraisals of the extent, pace, and evaluation of negative change in various domains, such as politics or economy, in South Korea.
It is important to note that in this study, instances of change referred to the
society at large, not to the individual experience of change to the worse as in
our case.
Our resulting “Jena Model of Social Change and Human Development,”
developed within an interdisciplinary research consortium at the University
of Jena, is shown in Figure 1. Inspired by the Elder–Conger tradition (Elder
& Conger, 2000) in analyzing the effects of societal challenges on individual adaptation, we focused on the internal cognitive-motivational processing and its interaction with opportunities embedded in contexts affected by
social change. The particular emphasis on the role of ecological conditions
in such change is reminiscent of Greenfield’s (2009) concept of changes in
community organization as driving change of social values and cognitive
characteristics. Both models share a multilevel approach like the Jena Model.
Demands form the core of the model—self-perceived changes for the worst
over a period of time (e.g., last 5 years) concerning work (labor market, work
place, and career development), family (relationship stability, life’s direction,
and ambivalence concerning family formation), and civic life (Tomasik &
Silbereisen, 2009). The statements addressing demands like “It has become
more difficult to plan my career path” or “The knowledge and experiences
of my parents now provide less sense of direction in my life” are formulated such that they denote an aversive psychological state (Westerhof &
Keyes, 2006) and loss of resources (Hobfoll, 2001) in domains that represent age-typical developmental tasks. The demands we assessed were conceived as individual manifestations of societal changes related to political
transformation, globalization, and individualization, originally in mid-2000s
Germany. We took rising rates of unemployment and nontraditional work
contracts, growing rates of divorce and cohabitation, or increasing rates of

Macro
social
change

Individual life course

Perceived
demands
and
benefits

Individual
and social
resources

Psychosocial
adaptation

Coping
processes

Figure 1 Jena model of social change and human development.

Ins
titu
filte tiona
rin
g l

EXO context
MESO context
Micro context

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change
5

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

multicultural city environments, to mention a few examples, as objective
evidence of such change (Tomasik & Silbereisen, 2009). A “filter” function
(Hofaecker, Buchholz, & Blossfeld, 2010) is involved in the model whereby
people with more resources, like those with a stable job, intact family, better
education, or living in parts of the country that were less affected by social
change are partially shielded from social change. A high load of demands is
thought to overtax people’s capabilities and result in negative consequences
for well-being.
As shown in the model, its entire working is moderated and mediated by
the interplay between social and personal resources and a range of coping
skills that are thought to be especially efficient if they are in line with perceived or actual opportunities for control of the situation. The entire system
is also influenced by a number of distal and proximal contexts that are themselves targets of social change. To distinguish contexts, we often referred to
units of administrative geographies people live in and assessed variation in
opportunities.
To assess the generalizability of the model, a similar study was conducted
in Poland, a country with similar societal changes but a weaker welfare net
(http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/).
Research guided by the model yielded five major insights. First, we found
that filtering indeed works as expected. What people experience as a result
of change is a function of their resourcefulness based on various aspects of
their status within the society—those better off are less burdened by demands
(Tomasik & Silbereisen, 2009). In addition, demands themselves were found
to be distributed unequally across geographic regions, reflecting objective
challenges, such as unemployment rates.
Second, the presumed stressful nature of demands was confirmed by negative relationships with various indicators of well-being, like satisfaction with
life in general and with particular domains of life such as work, as well as
with positive emotions or through a positive relationship with depressive
mood. The association was lower compared to analyzing distinct negative
events, such as losing one’s job or getting divorced, but there was a consistent
negative effect across domains of demands. It is likely that well-being also
has an effect on demands, meaning that people who are not satisfied with
their life may more easily face negative experiences concerning work and
family. We investigated this possibility using longitudinal data and found
that effects run both ways at about the same effect size. This means we are
safe in assuming that demands function as expected and represent a risk for
people’s well-being (Koerner, Silbereisen, & Cantner, 2014).
Third, as shown in the model, we deemed coping to be highly relevant
as a way to dampen or aggravate the effects just described. Following the

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

7

approach of developmental regulation introduced by Heckhausen (Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010), we distinguished between engagement and
disengagement. Engagement means to be active in tackling aversive experiences directly, thereby rallying energy and motivation, and, in the case of
failure, not giving up easily and instead trying again by other means to solve
the problem. In contrast, we conceived disengagement as either looking for
a face-saving excuse in case of failure, or giving up tackling the problem and
leaving the field, possibly with the implication that energy and motivation
may be saved for alternative actions.
Pursuing these questions lead us to a remarkable difference between the
German and the Polish data (Tomasik, Silbereisen, Lechner, & Wasilewski,
2013). In both countries, modes of engagement were more prevalent compared to disengagement as expected, but the appraisals of the demands only
played a role in the case of Germany. Here, the level of engagement was
higher if the demands were appraised as challenge rather than threat, and
as gain rather than loss. We interpreted the difference as related to the less
generous welfare systems in Poland. Under such conditions one has to act,
whatever the strength of the demand—for example, the fear of unemployment is not partially discounted by the feeling that one can still look for a
better job.
We expected with Heckhausen (1999) that, with regard to protecting
well-being, the effect of demands is smaller (less negative than on average)
when high engagement and high sense of control come together, whereas the
negative relationship is even aggravated when an incongruent combination
applies. For disengagement, the same principle was confirmed (Gruemer,
Silbereisen, & Heckhausen, 2013). Further results revealed that optimism
(a tendency to tackle challenges with confidence and persistence; always
expecting new opportunities; Carver & Scheier, 2002), apparently fostered
engagement. More specifically, high optimism seems to steer people to take
action when it’s relatively easy and likely to be successful.
Fourth, other resources played an intriguing role. For exploration, a
disposition to scrutinize contexts and embrace novelty for personal growth,
we found for both Germany and Poland that people higher in exploration
“reaped” the benefits of social change, such as new lifestyle options (It
is now easier for me to live according to my own moral concepts.) and
new learning opportunities (A greater range of further and continued
educational offers are now available to me.) more than others (Lechner,
Obschonka, & Silbereisen, 2015). This was especially so when living in
regions characterized by a higher divorce rate and a higher rate of Internet
domain registrations. Both contextual characteristics are seen as providing
more opportunities, frames of reference, and behavioral models for societal
trends toward individualization and knowledge society.

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Religiosity constitutes another potential resource. Drawing on one’s faith
when confronted with challenges can provide social support, hope, solace,
and comfort. We found that religiosity indeed seems to influence coping
with demands of social change (Lechner et al., 2015). Importantly, the
relationship between religiosity and coping varied according to the regional
economic prosperity: In more prosperous regions, religiosity was linked to
higher engagement and lower disengagement. In less prosperous regions, by
contrast, religiosity was linked to higher disengagement. We interpreted this
as evidence that religiosity can serve different coping functions, promoting
engagement or disengagement depending on the contextual opportunity
structure. Beyond this, religiosity also buffered the effect of work-related
demands on well-being but exacerbated the effect of family-related demands
thereon (Lechner, Tomasik, Silbereisen, & Wasilewski, 2013).
Fifth, a final strand of research attempted to bring all elements of the Jena
Model together in a multilevel format. Living in regions with high unemployment moderated the association of work demands and well-being, which is
negative on average, such that it became less negative—if one is surrounded
by unemployment, the demand posed by potential unemployment may not
be seen as such a threat, and may thus undercut initiative. This effect was
found to be well known from economic research, albeit for actual individual
unemployment and not for concerns like our demands (Clark, 2003). Further, the effect of engagement in regions with high unemployment rates was
less positive than on average (Pinquart, Silbereisen, & Koerner, 2009). Concerning disengagement, Tomasik, Silbereisen, and Heckhausen (2010) found
that, where people lived in economically devastated regions, disengagement
had a positive effect on well-being if they were hit hard by a high load of
demands. The individuals concerned seem to take the stance that it is better
to save their energy and motivation for other issues rather than engaging in
a futile struggle. In other words, it is very possible that such groups are not
acting in despair, but undertaking well-conceived action for the betterment
of their situation.
A possible caveat should be mentioned and ruled out—all results thus
far referred to “soft” outcomes, such as well-being, but not to “hard” facts,
like whether or not opportunity-appropriate coping with demands has
positive effects on the actual behaviors and outcomes in the fields to which
the demands refer. This issue was resolved by Koerner, Lechner, Pavlova,
and Silbereisen (2015) and findings show that engagement does buffer
against risks in contexts. People living in regions characterized by higher
unemployment rates faced a higher risk of losing their jobs, over time, and
the downward income change was more severe if engagement was low.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

9

POSSIBLE LINES OF FUTURE RESEARCH
For research and policy advice, the moderating role of ecological contexts
and their change is an especially important insight. In our past research, we
concentrated on two European countries characterized by the combination
of postsocialist transformation and globalization. This is certainly just a fraction of the range of societal change with a strong political element taking
place in the world over the last decades. There are other countries undergoing similar societal changes that deserve to be studied with uncertainties,
coping, and contextual moderation at the core. China—a country undergoing
rapid change to a capitalist economic system but without the representative
democracy as we know it—is a case in point. In a study inspired by our
demand approach, Chen, Bian, Xin, Wang, and Silbereisen (2010) found that
parents of adolescents in big cities evaluate social change much more positively than those from the countryside. From other research, we also know
that, like in postunification Germany, it took only a few years of reform to
change apparently fundamental cultural arrangements, such as whether children in the classroom should speak out and show other “individualized”
behaviors (Chen, Cen, Li, & He, 2005). Studying demands of social change
in China with its huge regional differences would be a great undertaking for
deepening the role of context moderation.
Countries that would serve especially well for the generalization of our German data are of course those divided as a consequence of political–military
conflicts, such as Taiwan and China, or North and South Korea. As a matter
of fact, the government of South Korea invited experts from the Jena group to
give advice on how to prepare for possible political transition. Our presumption that uncertainties will be the crucial experience of people from the North,
and that successful coping requires personal openness for exploration and
sense of control, was crucial. Both attributes are not likely to be high, especially concerning behavior in public life, among the Northern population.
This is a consequence of the severe economic hardships and political control
experienced by that population, meaning that, particularly in the case of a
political change, policy measures need to offer opportunities for engagement
in individual agency (Nan & Lee, 2015).
By the results reported, we feel encouraged to suggest that the approach via
demands and coping should be enriched and enlarged in future research.
Thus far, we have concentrated on demands in work and family—no surprise given that the dominant features of today’s world of work and affected
domains, at least in the Northern hemisphere, are uncertainty and precariousness (Kalleberg, 2009). However, data also exist concerning civic life,
including demands of relevance concerning new migration to Europe, such
as whether people feel threatened or challenged by the increasing indications

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of multicultural society. Given the changes European societies are likely to
undergo, systematic assessment of demands related to this situation may be
urgent for future research. Each of the domains certainly has more features
affected by social change than we investigated. One option for future research
would be going into more details. Concerning the demands in the domain
of work, Kubicek, Paškvan, and Korunka (2014) published an instrument to
assess various aspects of demands, rooted in Rosa’s (2013) “acceleration of
life” model, distinguishing five different aspects. Similar procedures were
followed for other domains such as family and public life.
Another option is to expand the approach to address and evaluate
particular policy measures, such as the “active aging” policies in Europe
(WHO, 2002). The aim is to foster more social participation and lifelong
learning, improving health and fitness. Preliminary research by Pavlova and
Silbereisen (2012) showed that such issues are perceived as uncertainties but
especially so among those with lower education that perceive them as threat
rather than challenge.
Future research should also pay attention to the fact that demands and
benefits often come together because social change is multifaceted. The
experience of being confronted with higher work intensity may be less negative in its effect, for instance, if it is complemented by a perceived increase
in decision latitude at the workplace. Indeed Obschonka, Silbereisen,
and Wasilewski (2012) showed that a combination of high/low demands
and benefits exists in sizable shares of the samples studied in Germany
and Poland, and that the groups characterized by high uncertainties and
low benefits had low psychological resources and adjustment. People at
risk of negative adjustment, such as the long-term unemployed, may be
characterized as lacking the perceived complementing benefits of social
change, but research is lacking.
Our approach concerning coping addressed probably rather stable habits
for engagement and disengagement. Of course, there are more ways to characterize basic modes of how people deal with challenges. Nevertheless, the
Heckhausen model has the advantage of offering a concept that refers to
the regulation of major developmental tasks across the life span. The occasional positive role of disengagement is especially interesting because it does
not conform to usual cultural expectations. A particularly intriguing variant is “projecting”—people invent a simple, clear, and consistent explanatory
structure to challenges they see as threat, although the reality is much more
complex (Landau, Kay, & Whitson, 2015). A case in point is how some rightist groups in Germany claim that recent immigrants exploit the welfare state
to the disadvantages of the local population in need, and thereby try to overcome uncertainties induced by migration.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

11

The quintessential result of research based on the Jena Model is certainly
the demonstration of the various ways by which processes and effects on
the individual level are moderated by features of the wider environment. By
now, we have studied a range of economic features (rates of unemployment,
net migration rate, and Internet domain registration rate), features related
to the domain of family (divorce rate and family-friendly regional opportunities). Other context aspects of relevance would be differences in policies
concerning state interventions in case of hardships, like the difference we
found between Germany and Poland in welfare transfer payments that
helped to explain differences in the association between demands and
individuals’ appraisals of the demands. It is known, for instance, that the
relationship between level of education and work stress (reminiscent of
our work demands) differs across European countries as a function of the
country-specific combination of financial compensation when unemployed
and further qualification (Lunau, Siegrist, Dragano, & Wahrendorf, 2015).
Nevertheless, more needs to be done in order to better understand how the
linkages work. One way for future research would be to assess on a more
proximal level manifestations of macro trends linked to the unemployment
rate and other such measures of opportunity at the regional level, such as
threatening signs in people’s everyday environment (many buildings available for lease, closed shops and businesses, reduced public services, signs of
neighborhood conflict, and vandalism). If our current interpretation is correct, one should be able to explain some of the broadscale regional effects
we found by more proximal indicators in people’s life, as has been done in
sociological neighborhood studies (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley,
2002).
Not only Europe has been threatened by unprecedented youth unemployment rates in several countries, such as Portugal and Greece. Our
finding that young people still in education and training are more positive
concerning demands, but do not differ much in perceived (work) demand
load compared to those in employment, gives hope because it shows realism
and a positive outlook (Tomasik et al., 2013). Against this backdrop, future
research should investigate particular groups of young people, such as
NEETs (not in employment, education, and training, which amount to 16%
of the population in OECD countries) in more depth. Research should look at
what demand load they experience in various domains, including the likely
spillover between domains such as work and family. These young people
will have their own experiences but also vicarious ones taken from peers and
relatives. The cumulated threats of these experiences may have especially
negative effects for well-being. What is especially relevant in the case of
young people is the possibility of “scarring” effects of youth unemployment
(or fear thereof, we may assume) on future adult unemployment (Schmillen

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

& Umkehrer, 2013). In addition, human and social costs are tremendous:
identification with our democratic system is shaken, well-being is reduced,
health status threatened, and future job satisfaction likely to be low (Bell &
Blanchflower, 2011).
We concentrated on well-being as psychosocial outcome because it is crucial for development in practically all fields of life. There are other outcomes,
however, with a more or less direct relationship to the demands and uncertainties we studied, such as civic engagement. It is obviously relevant for the
cohesion in democratic societies, and there are concerns that, with the growing uncertainties associated with social change, the willingness to invest in
working for a good cause in favor of others would decline. In preliminary
research, we showed that this indeed may be the case (Pavlova & Silbereisen,
2012). The topic is important enough to be the subject of future research,
especially concerning young people, who are often seen as not sufficiently
interested in civic engagement for the good of society, or themselves.
Research on social change in the way we have suggested needs more longitudinal study because this would be the way for a better understanding of
the bidirectional relationships between demands and psychosocial outcomes
like well-being. Our own data are in part longitudinal, but the samples are not
big enough to study the complex cross-level interactions we deem relevant
as they evolve across time. However, to inform policy decisions randomized
controlled intervention trials would also be crucial.
A line of relevant research on interventions exists, funded by the Horizon
2020 research initiative of the European Union. Beyond the urgent promotion
of economic growth, labor market reforms, and a better alignment of school
and vocational training, an increase in human and social capital is required to
overcome the challenges young people face on the labor market (Banerji, Saksonovs, Lin, & Blavy, 2014). As the uncertainties we investigated appear to
be an ordinary part of life for many, attempts at avoiding them will probably
fail. After all they are also challenges that may help to grow. Consequently, it
is important to promote capabilities for adequate coping and control beliefs,
whereby adequate means to be able to perceive and exploit the opportunity
structures in the environment.

REFERENCES
Banerji, A., Saksonovs, S., Lin, H., & Blavy, R. (2014). Youth unemployment in
advanced economies in Europe: Searching for solutions (IMF Staff Discussion Note).
Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.
Bell, D. N. F., & Blanchflower, D. G. (2011). Young people and the Great Recession (IZA
Discussion Paper No. 5674). Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

13

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (2002). Optimism. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.),
Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 231–243). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
Chen, X., Bian, Y., Xin, T., Wang, L., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2010). Perceived social
change and childrearing attitudes in China. European Psychologist, 15, 260–270.
Chen, X., Cen, G., Li, D., & He, Y. (2005). Social functioning and adjustment in Chinese children: The imprint of historical time. Child Development, 76, 182–195.
Clark, A. E. (2003). Unemployment as a social norm: Psychological evidence from
panel data. Journal of Labor Economics, 21, 323–351.
De Neve, J.-E., Diener, E., Tay, L., & Xuereb, C. (2014). The objective benefits of subjective well-being. In J. F. Helliwell, R. Layard & J. Sachs (Eds.), World happiness
report 2013 (Vol. 2, pp. 54–79). New York, NY: UN Sustainable.
Elder, G. H., & Conger, R. D. (2000). Children of the land: Adversity and success in rural
America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Greenfield, P. M. (2009). Linking social change and developmental change: Shifting
pathways of human development. Developmental Psychology, 45, 401–418.
Gruemer, S., Silbereisen, R. K., & Heckhausen, J. (2013). Subjective well-being in
times of social change: Congruence of control strategies and perceived control.
International Journal of Psychology, 48, 1246–1259.
Heckhausen, J. (1999). Developmental regulation in adulthood: Age-normative and
sociostructural constraints as adaptive challenges. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Heckhausen, J., Wrosch, C., & Schulz, R. (2010). A motivational theory of life-span
development. Psychological Review, 117, 32.
Hobfoll, S. E. (2001). The influence of culture, community, and the nested-self in the
stress process: Advancing conservation of resources theory. Applied Psychology, 50,
337–421.
Hofaecker, D., Buchholz, S., & Blossfeld, H. P. (2010). Globalization, institutional filters and changing life course. Patterns in modern societies: A summary of the
results from the GLOBALIFE-project. In R. K. Silbereisen & X. Chen (Eds.), Social
change and human development: Concept and results (pp. 101–124). London, England:
Sage.
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: Employment relations in
transition. American Sociological Review, 74, 1–22.
Kashdan, T. B., & Silvia, P. J. (2009). Curiosity and interest: The benefits of thriving
on novelty and challenge. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of
positive psychology (Vol. ,2nd ed., pp. 367–374). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
Kim, J. (2008). Perception of social change and psychological well-being: A study
focusing on social change in Korea between 1997 and 2001. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 38, 2821–2858.
Kohn, M. L. (2006). Change and stability: A cross-national analysis of social structure and
personality. Greenbrae, CA: Paradigm Press.

14

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Koerner, A., Lechner, C. M., Pavlova, M. K., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2015). Goal engagement in coping with occupational uncertainty predicts favorable career-related
outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 174–184.
Koerner, A., Silbereisen, R. K., & Cantner, U. (2014). Work-related demands emanating from social change and their relation to trait-like and occasion-specific aspects
of subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 115, 203–222.
Kubicek, B., Paškvan, M., & Korunka, C. (2014). Development and validation of an
instrument for assessing job demands arising from accelerated change: The intensification of job demands scale (IDS). European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology, 24, 898–913.
Landau, M. J., Kay, A. C., & Whitson, J. A. (2015). Compensatory control and the
appeal of a structured world. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 694–722.
Lechner, C. M., Obschonka, M., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2015, July). Who reaps the benefits
of social change? Exploration and its socioecological boundaries. Paper presented at the
14th European Congress of Psychology (ECP), Milano, Italy.
Lechner, C. M., Tomasik, M. J., Silbereisen, R. K., & Wasilewski, J. (2013). Exploring the stress-buffering effects of religiousness in relation to social and economic
change: Evidence from Poland. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5, 145–156.
Lunau, T., Siegrist, J., Dragano, N., & Wahrendorf, M. (2015). The association between
education and work stress: Does the policy context matter? PLoS One, 10(3),
e0121573.
Nan, H., & Lee, S.-y. (2015). Future direction on psychological research to prepare for
Korea reunification: Focusing on studies of North Korean refugees. Korean Journal
of Psychology, 34, 485–512.
Obschonka, M., Silbereisen, R. K., & Wasilewski, J. (2012). Constellations of new
demands concerning careers and jobs: Results from a two-country study on social
and economic change. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 211–223.
Oishi, S. (2014). Socioecological psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 581–609.
Pavlova, M. K., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2012). Participation in voluntary organizations
and volunteer work as a compensation for the absence of work or partnership?
Evidence from two German samples of younger and older adults. The Journals of
Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 67, 514–524.
Pinquart, M., Silbereisen, R. K., & Koerner, A. (2009). Do associations between perceived work-related demands associated with social change, control strategies,
and psychological well-being vary by regional economic conditions? European Psychologist, 14, 207–219.
Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Gannon-Rowley, T. (2002). Assessing “neighborhood effects”: Social processes and new directions in research. Annual Review of
Sociology, 28, 443–478.
Schmillen, A., & Umkehrer, M. (2013). The scars of youth. Effects of early-career unemployment on future unemployment experience (IAB Discussion Paper 6). Nuremberg:
Institute for Employment Research.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

15

Silbereisen, R. K., Reitzle, M., & Juang, L. (2002). Time and change: Psychosocial
transitions in German young adults 1991 and 1996. In L. Pulkkinen & A. Caspi
(Eds.), Paths to successful development: Personality in the life course (pp. 227–254).
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Titma, M., & Tuma, N. B. (2005). Human agency in the transition from communism:
Perspectives on the life course and aging. In K. W. Schaie & G. Elder (Eds.), Historical influences on lives and aging (pp. 108–143). New York, NY: Springer.
Tomasik, M. J., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2009). Demands of social change as a function of
the political context, institutional filters, and psychosocial resources. Social Indicators Research, 94, 13–28.
Tomasik, M. J., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2014). Negotiating demands of active ageing: Longitudinal findings from Germany. Aging & Society, 34, 790–819. doi:
10.1017/S0144686X12001304
Tomasik, M., Silbereisen, R. K., & Heckhausen, J. (2010). Is it adaptive to disengage from demands of social change? Adjustment to developmental barriers in
opportunity-deprived regions. Motivation and Emotion, 34, 384–398.
Tomasik, M. J., Silbereisen, R. K., Lechner, C. M., & Wasilewski, J. (2013). Negotiating demands of social change in young and middle-aged adults from Poland.
International Journal of Stress Management, 20(3), 222–253.
Westerhof, G. J., & Keyes, C. L. (2006). After the fall of the Berlin Wall: Perceptions
and consequences of stability and change among middle-aged and older East and
West Germans. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social
Sciences, 61, 240–247.
World Health Organization. (2002). Active ageing: A policy framework. Retrieved
from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/67215/1/WHO_NMH_NPH_
02.8.pdf.

RAINER K. SILBEREISEN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Rainer K. Silbereisen was the chair of developmental psychology and
is currently a research professor of human development and director of
the Center for Applied Developmental Science (CADS) at the University
of Jena, Germany, and a member of the Board of Governors of the University of Haifa, Israel. His previous appointment was full professor at
the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is a fellow of the American
Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science,
member of the European Academy of Sciences (London), past-president of
the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), and editor of the
International Journal of Psychology. A psychologist by training, he has been
involved as principal investigator in interdisciplinary research on the role
of social change in human development, acculturation among immigrants,
psychological development of entrepreneurship, and prevention of adolescent problem behavior, often in a cross-national and longitudinal format. His
achievements as researcher and mentor were honored by various awards.

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

RELATED ESSAYS
Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View (Psychology), Brian K. Barber
Globalization Backlash (Economics), Mabel Berezin
The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognition (Psychology), Ellen Bialystok
A Social Psychological Approach to Racializing Wealth Inequality (Sociology), Joey Brown
Peers and Adolescent Risk Taking (Psychology), Jason Chein
Neighborhoods and Cognitive Development (Psychology), Jondou Chen and
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Four Psychological Perspectives on Creativity (Psychology), Rodica Ioana
Damian and Dean Keith Simonton
Youth Entrepreneurship (Psychology), William Damon et al.
Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno
Globalization of Capital and National Policymaking (Political Science),
Steven R. Hall
Innovation (Economics), Adam B. Jaffe
Positive Development among Diverse Youth (Psychology), Richard M. Lerner
et al.
Understanding Risk-Taking Behavior: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology (Psychology), Karin Machluf and David F. Bjorklund
Social Change and Entry to Adulthood (Sociology), Jeylan T. Mortimer
Cultural Conflict (Sociology), Ian Mullins



Coping with Perceived Chances and
Risks Associated with Social Change
RAINER K. SILBEREISEN

Abstract
Social change in the form of political transformation in the context of globalization
and individualization is prevalent worldwide. Such change can occur gradually or
abruptly and not always as part of people’s conscious experience. In such situations, features of the broader ecological contexts in which people live moderate the
process of coping. Successfully coping affects well-being and other psychosocial outcomes and in most, but not all instances, requires active engagement, development
of a sense of control and capitalizing on proximate social and personal resources.
Future research should emphasize cross-national study of objective and subjective
outcomes, and the relationships between demands (broadly defined), varieties of
mechanisms for coping, and the full range of personal and social resources available
for doing so. The aim of such research must be to inform social policies designed to
empower people’s sense of personal agency and aligned with relevant changes in
opportunity structures.

Changes of the societal order affecting human life have happened throughout history, although in recent times such change may have accelerated
(Rosa, 2013). Social change can emerge gradually and therefore not necessarily be part of all people’s own conscious experience, like the change of
belief systems, but it can also happen in a rapid and comprehensive fashion,
such as social revolutions everybody experiences. Often both types are
interlocked—the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of
the communist world order, for instance, were rapid and comprehensive,
but developments in the following years were overlaid by the emerging
consequences of globalization and other worldwide issues, such as the 2007
economic crisis.

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

WHAT IS INTRIGUING ABOUT THE TOPIC OF SOCIAL CHANGE?
The specific case of social change we deal with in this essay is the combination of political and economic change that occurred in many European
countries that had for decades either been under the influence of communist
regimes, or were hit by challenges rooted in precarious economic development. After 1990, experiences in post-Soviet states, like those of the Baltic,
made it clear that radical changes of the institutional order and the economic
system have both losers and winners. As Titma and Tuma (2005) showed,
psychological resources played a role in deciding the fate of people soon after
societal change, such as their level of self-efficacy prior to the regime change.
Where levels were high, individuals were able to deal more successfully with
the breakup of institutions by taking the initiative and making a living by
own economic activities instead of waiting for a recovery of the occupational
opportunities they were used to.
When looking at people affected by the change of societal institutions, probably the most prominent common denominator is the experience of uncertainties, meaning that new expectations concerning individual’s behavior
are often not transparent and/or one lacks the means to deal with the new
challenges. Dealing with uncertainties, like how to accept individual responsibility for one’s occupational development by people who were used to the
scaffold of strict regulations by the state, requires resources one cannot gain
instantly and necessitates drawing on personal attributes and experiences
from one’s past life, which of course varies, as the example of self-efficacy
shows.
Individual agency is critical to the study of adjustment to rapid social
change. Individuals differ in their adaptability to a new societal order.
For instance, younger people (emerging adults) are notably more flexible
in terms of adaptability to new societal values because they are less constrained by an occupational pathway or the responsibility for a family.
Further, people differ in basic personality dimensions that appear to be
of particular relevance in times of social change, such as exploration and
openness (Kashdan & Silvia, 2009).
Psychological research needs to address the role of such agency factors, but
with a strong emphasis on the moderating role of the opportunity structures
in regions where people live. The change after the breakdown of the communist order did affect individuals’ lives, but not in a direct way. Rather, its effect
was through changing social contexts, such as changes in the economy from
state-owned to private enterprises, or changes in major institutions of political representation and law. People have to procure information and advice
for a new portfolio of behavior patterns, like how to apply for a job by presenting oneself in a way that is suitable for the new situation, from prototypes

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

3

embedded in the given context, such as role models for adequate behavior in
economically precarious regions. In addressing such issues psychology was
weak because for too long it was not “ecology-minded” (Oishi, 2014) and
had overlooked the importance of opportunities and contexts and how they
interact with individuals’ agency.
Being faced with uncertainties is an aversive experience (Westerhof &
Keyes, 2006), and attempting to resolve the situation requires resources, cognitive and motivational, that may be challenged already by the uncertainties
because they also signal a loss of resources, namely, the established ways of
exercising control over one’s life. If the uncertainties related to social change
people experience in their life refer to developmental tasks nobody can
avoid, like undergoing educational training for a future occupation, they
have to deal with the uncertainties and find a resolution.
Although uncertainties like those rooted in shattered career expectations
are not the common stress-inducing distinct negative events such as unemployment, research demonstrated that feeling threatened or concerned that
such events may happen have the same, and sometimes even stronger, effect
on various indicators of well-being (Clark, 2003). We should bear in mind
that well-being may also be an antecedent to further positive outcomes
concerning social behavior, income, and health (De Neve, Diener, Tay, &
Xuereb, 2014).
In sum, because social change is a ubiquitous fact of life, for better or for
worse, and because it may have negative consequences for well-being and
many other psychosocial outcomes, further research is needed that clarifies
the interplay between personal and contextual conditions of successful coping with the changes. Beyond its relevance for new insights in the psychology
of particular context–person interactions, this research is also likely to provide evidence relevant for policies addressing the big issues of social change
in our societies.
SELECT RESULTS OF OUR RECENT RESEARCH ON SOCIAL CHANGE
Early research on the effects of postsocialist changes in Europe and Asia
followed a design that compared samples gathered at different stages of
the transformation process, meant to represent indirectly the changing
conditions for individual behavior and development. The pivotal research
was conducted by Kohn and his colleagues (Kohn, 2006). They found that
the social change in countries of Eastern Europe gradually lead to positive
associations, reminiscent of what was known from capitalist industrial
organization, between the higher opportunity for self-directed work among
employees higher in the hierarchy of production and higher levels of
flexibility as personality characteristic. In our own past research, we used

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

a similar period comparison around the time of German unification and
found that changes in social institutions regulating education, training, and
work had an almost immediate effect on biographical transitions, such as the
postponement of first occupational plans, which were now the responsibility
of the individual instead of the state, resulting in practically equal timing in
East and West (Silbereisen, Reitzle, & Juang, 2002).
Of course, such results did not apply to everybody because not everybody
was affected to the same degree by new expectations and related uncertainties. This observation lead us to pursue a different research strategy that put
the new “demands” (the perception of growing uncertainties in major life
domains) of social change as well as its benefits at the center, accompanied
by concepts that address how people deal with the demands. We were not
the first to address perceptions of social change. For instance, Kim (2008)
assessed subjective appraisals of the extent, pace, and evaluation of negative change in various domains, such as politics or economy, in South Korea.
It is important to note that in this study, instances of change referred to the
society at large, not to the individual experience of change to the worse as in
our case.
Our resulting “Jena Model of Social Change and Human Development,”
developed within an interdisciplinary research consortium at the University
of Jena, is shown in Figure 1. Inspired by the Elder–Conger tradition (Elder
& Conger, 2000) in analyzing the effects of societal challenges on individual adaptation, we focused on the internal cognitive-motivational processing and its interaction with opportunities embedded in contexts affected by
social change. The particular emphasis on the role of ecological conditions
in such change is reminiscent of Greenfield’s (2009) concept of changes in
community organization as driving change of social values and cognitive
characteristics. Both models share a multilevel approach like the Jena Model.
Demands form the core of the model—self-perceived changes for the worst
over a period of time (e.g., last 5 years) concerning work (labor market, work
place, and career development), family (relationship stability, life’s direction,
and ambivalence concerning family formation), and civic life (Tomasik &
Silbereisen, 2009). The statements addressing demands like “It has become
more difficult to plan my career path” or “The knowledge and experiences
of my parents now provide less sense of direction in my life” are formulated such that they denote an aversive psychological state (Westerhof &
Keyes, 2006) and loss of resources (Hobfoll, 2001) in domains that represent age-typical developmental tasks. The demands we assessed were conceived as individual manifestations of societal changes related to political
transformation, globalization, and individualization, originally in mid-2000s
Germany. We took rising rates of unemployment and nontraditional work
contracts, growing rates of divorce and cohabitation, or increasing rates of

Macro
social
change

Individual life course

Perceived
demands
and
benefits

Individual
and social
resources

Psychosocial
adaptation

Coping
processes

Figure 1 Jena model of social change and human development.

Ins
titu
filte tiona
rin
g l

EXO context
MESO context
Micro context

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change
5

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

multicultural city environments, to mention a few examples, as objective
evidence of such change (Tomasik & Silbereisen, 2009). A “filter” function
(Hofaecker, Buchholz, & Blossfeld, 2010) is involved in the model whereby
people with more resources, like those with a stable job, intact family, better
education, or living in parts of the country that were less affected by social
change are partially shielded from social change. A high load of demands is
thought to overtax people’s capabilities and result in negative consequences
for well-being.
As shown in the model, its entire working is moderated and mediated by
the interplay between social and personal resources and a range of coping
skills that are thought to be especially efficient if they are in line with perceived or actual opportunities for control of the situation. The entire system
is also influenced by a number of distal and proximal contexts that are themselves targets of social change. To distinguish contexts, we often referred to
units of administrative geographies people live in and assessed variation in
opportunities.
To assess the generalizability of the model, a similar study was conducted
in Poland, a country with similar societal changes but a weaker welfare net
(http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/).
Research guided by the model yielded five major insights. First, we found
that filtering indeed works as expected. What people experience as a result
of change is a function of their resourcefulness based on various aspects of
their status within the society—those better off are less burdened by demands
(Tomasik & Silbereisen, 2009). In addition, demands themselves were found
to be distributed unequally across geographic regions, reflecting objective
challenges, such as unemployment rates.
Second, the presumed stressful nature of demands was confirmed by negative relationships with various indicators of well-being, like satisfaction with
life in general and with particular domains of life such as work, as well as
with positive emotions or through a positive relationship with depressive
mood. The association was lower compared to analyzing distinct negative
events, such as losing one’s job or getting divorced, but there was a consistent
negative effect across domains of demands. It is likely that well-being also
has an effect on demands, meaning that people who are not satisfied with
their life may more easily face negative experiences concerning work and
family. We investigated this possibility using longitudinal data and found
that effects run both ways at about the same effect size. This means we are
safe in assuming that demands function as expected and represent a risk for
people’s well-being (Koerner, Silbereisen, & Cantner, 2014).
Third, as shown in the model, we deemed coping to be highly relevant
as a way to dampen or aggravate the effects just described. Following the

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

7

approach of developmental regulation introduced by Heckhausen (Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010), we distinguished between engagement and
disengagement. Engagement means to be active in tackling aversive experiences directly, thereby rallying energy and motivation, and, in the case of
failure, not giving up easily and instead trying again by other means to solve
the problem. In contrast, we conceived disengagement as either looking for
a face-saving excuse in case of failure, or giving up tackling the problem and
leaving the field, possibly with the implication that energy and motivation
may be saved for alternative actions.
Pursuing these questions lead us to a remarkable difference between the
German and the Polish data (Tomasik, Silbereisen, Lechner, & Wasilewski,
2013). In both countries, modes of engagement were more prevalent compared to disengagement as expected, but the appraisals of the demands only
played a role in the case of Germany. Here, the level of engagement was
higher if the demands were appraised as challenge rather than threat, and
as gain rather than loss. We interpreted the difference as related to the less
generous welfare systems in Poland. Under such conditions one has to act,
whatever the strength of the demand—for example, the fear of unemployment is not partially discounted by the feeling that one can still look for a
better job.
We expected with Heckhausen (1999) that, with regard to protecting
well-being, the effect of demands is smaller (less negative than on average)
when high engagement and high sense of control come together, whereas the
negative relationship is even aggravated when an incongruent combination
applies. For disengagement, the same principle was confirmed (Gruemer,
Silbereisen, & Heckhausen, 2013). Further results revealed that optimism
(a tendency to tackle challenges with confidence and persistence; always
expecting new opportunities; Carver & Scheier, 2002), apparently fostered
engagement. More specifically, high optimism seems to steer people to take
action when it’s relatively easy and likely to be successful.
Fourth, other resources played an intriguing role. For exploration, a
disposition to scrutinize contexts and embrace novelty for personal growth,
we found for both Germany and Poland that people higher in exploration
“reaped” the benefits of social change, such as new lifestyle options (It
is now easier for me to live according to my own moral concepts.) and
new learning opportunities (A greater range of further and continued
educational offers are now available to me.) more than others (Lechner,
Obschonka, & Silbereisen, 2015). This was especially so when living in
regions characterized by a higher divorce rate and a higher rate of Internet
domain registrations. Both contextual characteristics are seen as providing
more opportunities, frames of reference, and behavioral models for societal
trends toward individualization and knowledge society.

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Religiosity constitutes another potential resource. Drawing on one’s faith
when confronted with challenges can provide social support, hope, solace,
and comfort. We found that religiosity indeed seems to influence coping
with demands of social change (Lechner et al., 2015). Importantly, the
relationship between religiosity and coping varied according to the regional
economic prosperity: In more prosperous regions, religiosity was linked to
higher engagement and lower disengagement. In less prosperous regions, by
contrast, religiosity was linked to higher disengagement. We interpreted this
as evidence that religiosity can serve different coping functions, promoting
engagement or disengagement depending on the contextual opportunity
structure. Beyond this, religiosity also buffered the effect of work-related
demands on well-being but exacerbated the effect of family-related demands
thereon (Lechner, Tomasik, Silbereisen, & Wasilewski, 2013).
Fifth, a final strand of research attempted to bring all elements of the Jena
Model together in a multilevel format. Living in regions with high unemployment moderated the association of work demands and well-being, which is
negative on average, such that it became less negative—if one is surrounded
by unemployment, the demand posed by potential unemployment may not
be seen as such a threat, and may thus undercut initiative. This effect was
found to be well known from economic research, albeit for actual individual
unemployment and not for concerns like our demands (Clark, 2003). Further, the effect of engagement in regions with high unemployment rates was
less positive than on average (Pinquart, Silbereisen, & Koerner, 2009). Concerning disengagement, Tomasik, Silbereisen, and Heckhausen (2010) found
that, where people lived in economically devastated regions, disengagement
had a positive effect on well-being if they were hit hard by a high load of
demands. The individuals concerned seem to take the stance that it is better
to save their energy and motivation for other issues rather than engaging in
a futile struggle. In other words, it is very possible that such groups are not
acting in despair, but undertaking well-conceived action for the betterment
of their situation.
A possible caveat should be mentioned and ruled out—all results thus
far referred to “soft” outcomes, such as well-being, but not to “hard” facts,
like whether or not opportunity-appropriate coping with demands has
positive effects on the actual behaviors and outcomes in the fields to which
the demands refer. This issue was resolved by Koerner, Lechner, Pavlova,
and Silbereisen (2015) and findings show that engagement does buffer
against risks in contexts. People living in regions characterized by higher
unemployment rates faced a higher risk of losing their jobs, over time, and
the downward income change was more severe if engagement was low.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

9

POSSIBLE LINES OF FUTURE RESEARCH
For research and policy advice, the moderating role of ecological contexts
and their change is an especially important insight. In our past research, we
concentrated on two European countries characterized by the combination
of postsocialist transformation and globalization. This is certainly just a fraction of the range of societal change with a strong political element taking
place in the world over the last decades. There are other countries undergoing similar societal changes that deserve to be studied with uncertainties,
coping, and contextual moderation at the core. China—a country undergoing
rapid change to a capitalist economic system but without the representative
democracy as we know it—is a case in point. In a study inspired by our
demand approach, Chen, Bian, Xin, Wang, and Silbereisen (2010) found that
parents of adolescents in big cities evaluate social change much more positively than those from the countryside. From other research, we also know
that, like in postunification Germany, it took only a few years of reform to
change apparently fundamental cultural arrangements, such as whether children in the classroom should speak out and show other “individualized”
behaviors (Chen, Cen, Li, & He, 2005). Studying demands of social change
in China with its huge regional differences would be a great undertaking for
deepening the role of context moderation.
Countries that would serve especially well for the generalization of our German data are of course those divided as a consequence of political–military
conflicts, such as Taiwan and China, or North and South Korea. As a matter
of fact, the government of South Korea invited experts from the Jena group to
give advice on how to prepare for possible political transition. Our presumption that uncertainties will be the crucial experience of people from the North,
and that successful coping requires personal openness for exploration and
sense of control, was crucial. Both attributes are not likely to be high, especially concerning behavior in public life, among the Northern population.
This is a consequence of the severe economic hardships and political control
experienced by that population, meaning that, particularly in the case of a
political change, policy measures need to offer opportunities for engagement
in individual agency (Nan & Lee, 2015).
By the results reported, we feel encouraged to suggest that the approach via
demands and coping should be enriched and enlarged in future research.
Thus far, we have concentrated on demands in work and family—no surprise given that the dominant features of today’s world of work and affected
domains, at least in the Northern hemisphere, are uncertainty and precariousness (Kalleberg, 2009). However, data also exist concerning civic life,
including demands of relevance concerning new migration to Europe, such
as whether people feel threatened or challenged by the increasing indications

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of multicultural society. Given the changes European societies are likely to
undergo, systematic assessment of demands related to this situation may be
urgent for future research. Each of the domains certainly has more features
affected by social change than we investigated. One option for future research
would be going into more details. Concerning the demands in the domain
of work, Kubicek, Paškvan, and Korunka (2014) published an instrument to
assess various aspects of demands, rooted in Rosa’s (2013) “acceleration of
life” model, distinguishing five different aspects. Similar procedures were
followed for other domains such as family and public life.
Another option is to expand the approach to address and evaluate
particular policy measures, such as the “active aging” policies in Europe
(WHO, 2002). The aim is to foster more social participation and lifelong
learning, improving health and fitness. Preliminary research by Pavlova and
Silbereisen (2012) showed that such issues are perceived as uncertainties but
especially so among those with lower education that perceive them as threat
rather than challenge.
Future research should also pay attention to the fact that demands and
benefits often come together because social change is multifaceted. The
experience of being confronted with higher work intensity may be less negative in its effect, for instance, if it is complemented by a perceived increase
in decision latitude at the workplace. Indeed Obschonka, Silbereisen,
and Wasilewski (2012) showed that a combination of high/low demands
and benefits exists in sizable shares of the samples studied in Germany
and Poland, and that the groups characterized by high uncertainties and
low benefits had low psychological resources and adjustment. People at
risk of negative adjustment, such as the long-term unemployed, may be
characterized as lacking the perceived complementing benefits of social
change, but research is lacking.
Our approach concerning coping addressed probably rather stable habits
for engagement and disengagement. Of course, there are more ways to characterize basic modes of how people deal with challenges. Nevertheless, the
Heckhausen model has the advantage of offering a concept that refers to
the regulation of major developmental tasks across the life span. The occasional positive role of disengagement is especially interesting because it does
not conform to usual cultural expectations. A particularly intriguing variant is “projecting”—people invent a simple, clear, and consistent explanatory
structure to challenges they see as threat, although the reality is much more
complex (Landau, Kay, & Whitson, 2015). A case in point is how some rightist groups in Germany claim that recent immigrants exploit the welfare state
to the disadvantages of the local population in need, and thereby try to overcome uncertainties induced by migration.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

11

The quintessential result of research based on the Jena Model is certainly
the demonstration of the various ways by which processes and effects on
the individual level are moderated by features of the wider environment. By
now, we have studied a range of economic features (rates of unemployment,
net migration rate, and Internet domain registration rate), features related
to the domain of family (divorce rate and family-friendly regional opportunities). Other context aspects of relevance would be differences in policies
concerning state interventions in case of hardships, like the difference we
found between Germany and Poland in welfare transfer payments that
helped to explain differences in the association between demands and
individuals’ appraisals of the demands. It is known, for instance, that the
relationship between level of education and work stress (reminiscent of
our work demands) differs across European countries as a function of the
country-specific combination of financial compensation when unemployed
and further qualification (Lunau, Siegrist, Dragano, & Wahrendorf, 2015).
Nevertheless, more needs to be done in order to better understand how the
linkages work. One way for future research would be to assess on a more
proximal level manifestations of macro trends linked to the unemployment
rate and other such measures of opportunity at the regional level, such as
threatening signs in people’s everyday environment (many buildings available for lease, closed shops and businesses, reduced public services, signs of
neighborhood conflict, and vandalism). If our current interpretation is correct, one should be able to explain some of the broadscale regional effects
we found by more proximal indicators in people’s life, as has been done in
sociological neighborhood studies (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley,
2002).
Not only Europe has been threatened by unprecedented youth unemployment rates in several countries, such as Portugal and Greece. Our
finding that young people still in education and training are more positive
concerning demands, but do not differ much in perceived (work) demand
load compared to those in employment, gives hope because it shows realism
and a positive outlook (Tomasik et al., 2013). Against this backdrop, future
research should investigate particular groups of young people, such as
NEETs (not in employment, education, and training, which amount to 16%
of the population in OECD countries) in more depth. Research should look at
what demand load they experience in various domains, including the likely
spillover between domains such as work and family. These young people
will have their own experiences but also vicarious ones taken from peers and
relatives. The cumulated threats of these experiences may have especially
negative effects for well-being. What is especially relevant in the case of
young people is the possibility of “scarring” effects of youth unemployment
(or fear thereof, we may assume) on future adult unemployment (Schmillen

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

& Umkehrer, 2013). In addition, human and social costs are tremendous:
identification with our democratic system is shaken, well-being is reduced,
health status threatened, and future job satisfaction likely to be low (Bell &
Blanchflower, 2011).
We concentrated on well-being as psychosocial outcome because it is crucial for development in practically all fields of life. There are other outcomes,
however, with a more or less direct relationship to the demands and uncertainties we studied, such as civic engagement. It is obviously relevant for the
cohesion in democratic societies, and there are concerns that, with the growing uncertainties associated with social change, the willingness to invest in
working for a good cause in favor of others would decline. In preliminary
research, we showed that this indeed may be the case (Pavlova & Silbereisen,
2012). The topic is important enough to be the subject of future research,
especially concerning young people, who are often seen as not sufficiently
interested in civic engagement for the good of society, or themselves.
Research on social change in the way we have suggested needs more longitudinal study because this would be the way for a better understanding of
the bidirectional relationships between demands and psychosocial outcomes
like well-being. Our own data are in part longitudinal, but the samples are not
big enough to study the complex cross-level interactions we deem relevant
as they evolve across time. However, to inform policy decisions randomized
controlled intervention trials would also be crucial.
A line of relevant research on interventions exists, funded by the Horizon
2020 research initiative of the European Union. Beyond the urgent promotion
of economic growth, labor market reforms, and a better alignment of school
and vocational training, an increase in human and social capital is required to
overcome the challenges young people face on the labor market (Banerji, Saksonovs, Lin, & Blavy, 2014). As the uncertainties we investigated appear to
be an ordinary part of life for many, attempts at avoiding them will probably
fail. After all they are also challenges that may help to grow. Consequently, it
is important to promote capabilities for adequate coping and control beliefs,
whereby adequate means to be able to perceive and exploit the opportunity
structures in the environment.

REFERENCES
Banerji, A., Saksonovs, S., Lin, H., & Blavy, R. (2014). Youth unemployment in
advanced economies in Europe: Searching for solutions (IMF Staff Discussion Note).
Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.
Bell, D. N. F., & Blanchflower, D. G. (2011). Young people and the Great Recession (IZA
Discussion Paper No. 5674). Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

13

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (2002). Optimism. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.),
Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 231–243). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
Chen, X., Bian, Y., Xin, T., Wang, L., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2010). Perceived social
change and childrearing attitudes in China. European Psychologist, 15, 260–270.
Chen, X., Cen, G., Li, D., & He, Y. (2005). Social functioning and adjustment in Chinese children: The imprint of historical time. Child Development, 76, 182–195.
Clark, A. E. (2003). Unemployment as a social norm: Psychological evidence from
panel data. Journal of Labor Economics, 21, 323–351.
De Neve, J.-E., Diener, E., Tay, L., & Xuereb, C. (2014). The objective benefits of subjective well-being. In J. F. Helliwell, R. Layard & J. Sachs (Eds.), World happiness
report 2013 (Vol. 2, pp. 54–79). New York, NY: UN Sustainable.
Elder, G. H., & Conger, R. D. (2000). Children of the land: Adversity and success in rural
America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Greenfield, P. M. (2009). Linking social change and developmental change: Shifting
pathways of human development. Developmental Psychology, 45, 401–418.
Gruemer, S., Silbereisen, R. K., & Heckhausen, J. (2013). Subjective well-being in
times of social change: Congruence of control strategies and perceived control.
International Journal of Psychology, 48, 1246–1259.
Heckhausen, J. (1999). Developmental regulation in adulthood: Age-normative and
sociostructural constraints as adaptive challenges. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Heckhausen, J., Wrosch, C., & Schulz, R. (2010). A motivational theory of life-span
development. Psychological Review, 117, 32.
Hobfoll, S. E. (2001). The influence of culture, community, and the nested-self in the
stress process: Advancing conservation of resources theory. Applied Psychology, 50,
337–421.
Hofaecker, D., Buchholz, S., & Blossfeld, H. P. (2010). Globalization, institutional filters and changing life course. Patterns in modern societies: A summary of the
results from the GLOBALIFE-project. In R. K. Silbereisen & X. Chen (Eds.), Social
change and human development: Concept and results (pp. 101–124). London, England:
Sage.
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: Employment relations in
transition. American Sociological Review, 74, 1–22.
Kashdan, T. B., & Silvia, P. J. (2009). Curiosity and interest: The benefits of thriving
on novelty and challenge. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of
positive psychology (Vol. ,2nd ed., pp. 367–374). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
Kim, J. (2008). Perception of social change and psychological well-being: A study
focusing on social change in Korea between 1997 and 2001. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 38, 2821–2858.
Kohn, M. L. (2006). Change and stability: A cross-national analysis of social structure and
personality. Greenbrae, CA: Paradigm Press.

14

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Koerner, A., Lechner, C. M., Pavlova, M. K., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2015). Goal engagement in coping with occupational uncertainty predicts favorable career-related
outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 174–184.
Koerner, A., Silbereisen, R. K., & Cantner, U. (2014). Work-related demands emanating from social change and their relation to trait-like and occasion-specific aspects
of subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 115, 203–222.
Kubicek, B., Paškvan, M., & Korunka, C. (2014). Development and validation of an
instrument for assessing job demands arising from accelerated change: The intensification of job demands scale (IDS). European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology, 24, 898–913.
Landau, M. J., Kay, A. C., & Whitson, J. A. (2015). Compensatory control and the
appeal of a structured world. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 694–722.
Lechner, C. M., Obschonka, M., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2015, July). Who reaps the benefits
of social change? Exploration and its socioecological boundaries. Paper presented at the
14th European Congress of Psychology (ECP), Milano, Italy.
Lechner, C. M., Tomasik, M. J., Silbereisen, R. K., & Wasilewski, J. (2013). Exploring the stress-buffering effects of religiousness in relation to social and economic
change: Evidence from Poland. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5, 145–156.
Lunau, T., Siegrist, J., Dragano, N., & Wahrendorf, M. (2015). The association between
education and work stress: Does the policy context matter? PLoS One, 10(3),
e0121573.
Nan, H., & Lee, S.-y. (2015). Future direction on psychological research to prepare for
Korea reunification: Focusing on studies of North Korean refugees. Korean Journal
of Psychology, 34, 485–512.
Obschonka, M., Silbereisen, R. K., & Wasilewski, J. (2012). Constellations of new
demands concerning careers and jobs: Results from a two-country study on social
and economic change. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 211–223.
Oishi, S. (2014). Socioecological psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 581–609.
Pavlova, M. K., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2012). Participation in voluntary organizations
and volunteer work as a compensation for the absence of work or partnership?
Evidence from two German samples of younger and older adults. The Journals of
Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 67, 514–524.
Pinquart, M., Silbereisen, R. K., & Koerner, A. (2009). Do associations between perceived work-related demands associated with social change, control strategies,
and psychological well-being vary by regional economic conditions? European Psychologist, 14, 207–219.
Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Gannon-Rowley, T. (2002). Assessing “neighborhood effects”: Social processes and new directions in research. Annual Review of
Sociology, 28, 443–478.
Schmillen, A., & Umkehrer, M. (2013). The scars of youth. Effects of early-career unemployment on future unemployment experience (IAB Discussion Paper 6). Nuremberg:
Institute for Employment Research.

Coping with Perceived Chances and Risks Associated with Social Change

15

Silbereisen, R. K., Reitzle, M., & Juang, L. (2002). Time and change: Psychosocial
transitions in German young adults 1991 and 1996. In L. Pulkkinen & A. Caspi
(Eds.), Paths to successful development: Personality in the life course (pp. 227–254).
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Titma, M., & Tuma, N. B. (2005). Human agency in the transition from communism:
Perspectives on the life course and aging. In K. W. Schaie & G. Elder (Eds.), Historical influences on lives and aging (pp. 108–143). New York, NY: Springer.
Tomasik, M. J., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2009). Demands of social change as a function of
the political context, institutional filters, and psychosocial resources. Social Indicators Research, 94, 13–28.
Tomasik, M. J., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2014). Negotiating demands of active ageing: Longitudinal findings from Germany. Aging & Society, 34, 790–819. doi:
10.1017/S0144686X12001304
Tomasik, M., Silbereisen, R. K., & Heckhausen, J. (2010). Is it adaptive to disengage from demands of social change? Adjustment to developmental barriers in
opportunity-deprived regions. Motivation and Emotion, 34, 384–398.
Tomasik, M. J., Silbereisen, R. K., Lechner, C. M., & Wasilewski, J. (2013). Negotiating demands of social change in young and middle-aged adults from Poland.
International Journal of Stress Management, 20(3), 222–253.
Westerhof, G. J., & Keyes, C. L. (2006). After the fall of the Berlin Wall: Perceptions
and consequences of stability and change among middle-aged and older East and
West Germans. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social
Sciences, 61, 240–247.
World Health Organization. (2002). Active ageing: A policy framework. Retrieved
from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/67215/1/WHO_NMH_NPH_
02.8.pdf.

RAINER K. SILBEREISEN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Rainer K. Silbereisen was the chair of developmental psychology and
is currently a research professor of human development and director of
the Center for Applied Developmental Science (CADS) at the University
of Jena, Germany, and a member of the Board of Governors of the University of Haifa, Israel. His previous appointment was full professor at
the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is a fellow of the American
Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science,
member of the European Academy of Sciences (London), past-president of
the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), and editor of the
International Journal of Psychology. A psychologist by training, he has been
involved as principal investigator in interdisciplinary research on the role
of social change in human development, acculturation among immigrants,
psychological development of entrepreneurship, and prevention of adolescent problem behavior, often in a cross-national and longitudinal format. His
achievements as researcher and mentor were honored by various awards.

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

RELATED ESSAYS
Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View (Psychology), Brian K. Barber
Globalization Backlash (Economics), Mabel Berezin
The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognition (Psychology), Ellen Bialystok
A Social Psychological Approach to Racializing Wealth Inequality (Sociology), Joey Brown
Peers and Adolescent Risk Taking (Psychology), Jason Chein
Neighborhoods and Cognitive Development (Psychology), Jondou Chen and
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Four Psychological Perspectives on Creativity (Psychology), Rodica Ioana
Damian and Dean Keith Simonton
Youth Entrepreneurship (Psychology), William Damon et al.
Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno
Globalization of Capital and National Policymaking (Political Science),
Steven R. Hall
Innovation (Economics), Adam B. Jaffe
Positive Development among Diverse Youth (Psychology), Richard M. Lerner
et al.
Understanding Risk-Taking Behavior: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology (Psychology), Karin Machluf and David F. Bjorklund
Social Change and Entry to Adulthood (Sociology), Jeylan T. Mortimer
Cultural Conflict (Sociology), Ian Mullins