A Study on Anomie and Neoliberalism: The Role of Social Disconnection on Well-Being
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/escpsi.17.1.2024.18009Keywords:
anomie, economic inequality, neoliberalism, social disconnection, well-beingAbstract
This study analyses whether the levels of anomie and social disconnection as consequences of the perceived implementation of neoliberal economic measures have a negative influence on the well-being of individuals. The study sample consisted of 334 Spanish participants residing in the city and province of Malaga, Spain (201 women and 133 men). The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 80 years (M = 33.22, SD = 15.35). The results obtained in our research showed that anomie and social disconnection exert a serial mediation on the relationship between perceived neoliberalism and well-being. It was obtained that perceived neoliberalism had a positive effect on anomie and that anomie had a positive effect on social disengagement, while pointing to social disengagement having a negative effect on well-being. The results are interpreted from the perspective of social identity, assuming that a society as being in a state of anomie fails to satisfy important psychological needs. This anomie causes individuals to perceive themselves as more disconnected, and as such not benefiting from the potential positive effects of group membership and social identification.
Downloads
Metrics
References
Abercrombie, N., Hill, S. & Turner, B. S. (2006). The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. Penguin Random House.
Alvaredo, F., Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E. & Zucman, G. (2018). Global inequality dynamics: New findings from WID.world. American Economic Review, 107, 404-409. https://doi.org/10.1257/aerp-p20171095
Beattie, P. (2019). The road to psychopathology: Neoliberalism and the human mind”. Journal of Social Issues, 73, 80-112. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12304
Becker, J. C., Hartwich, L. & Haslam, S. A. (2021). Neoliberalism can reduce well-being by promoting a sense of social disconnection, competition, and loneliness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 60, 947-965. https://doi:10.111/bjso.12438
Blanco, A., & Díaz, D. (2007). Social order and mental health: A social well-being approach. Psychology in Spain, 11, 61-71.
Buttrick, N. R., Heintzelman, S. J. & Oishi, S. (2017). Inequality and well-being. Current Opinion in Psychology, 18, 15-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.07.016
Cruwys, T., Haslam, S. A., Dingle, G., Haslam, C. & Jetten, J. (2014). Depression and social identity: An integrative review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18: 215-238. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314523839
d´Hombres, B., Weber, A. & Elia, L. (2012). Literature review on income inequality and the effects on social outcomes. Publication Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2788762003
Durkheim, E. (1897/1987). Suicide. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
EUROSTAT. (2020). Inequality of income distribution. Available online at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tespm151/default/table?lang=en.
Fischer, C. S. (1973). On urban alienations and anomie. Powerlessness and social isolation. American Sociological Review, 38, 311-326. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094355
Fiske, S. (2004). Social beings. A core motives approach to social psychology. Wiley.
Greenaway, K., Cruwys, T., Haslam, S. A. & Jetten, J. (2016). Social identities promote well-being because they satisfy global psychological needs. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 294-307. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2169
Gustavsson, M. & Jordahl, H. (2008). Inequality and trust in Sweeden: Some inequalities are more harmful than others. Journal of Public Economics, 92, 348-365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007-06.010
Hair, J. F., Black, W., Babin, B. & Anderson, R. (2013). Multivariate Data Analysis: Pearson New International Edition. Pearson Education.
Hartwich, L., & Becker, J. C. (2019). Exposure to neoliberalism increases resentment of the elite via feeling of anomie and negative psychological reactions. Journal of Social Issues, 75, 113-133. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12311
Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
Haslam, C., Jetten, J., Cruwys, T., Dingle, G. & Haslam, S. A. (2018). The new psychology of health: Unlocking the social cure. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315648569
Haslam, S. A. & Reicher, S. D. (2007). Identity entrepreneurship and the consequences of identity failure: The dynamics of leadership in the BBC Prison Study. Social Psychology Quarterly, 70, 125-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/019027250707000204
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S.D. & Platow, M. J. (2011). The new psychology of leadership: Identity, influence and power. Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351108232
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. The Guilford Press.
Helliwell, J. F. & Putnam, R. D. (2004). The social context of well-being. Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society of London, 359, 1435-1446. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2004.1522
Heydari, A., Teymoori, A. & Nasiri, H. (2014). Development of suicidality within socioeconomic context: Mediation effect of parental control and anomie. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 68, 63-76. https://doi.org/10.2190/OM.68.1.e
Hornsey, M. J. & Hogg, M. A. (2000). Assimilation and diversity: An integrative model of subgroup relations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 143-156. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0402_03
IBM Corp. (Released 2019). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. IBM Corp.
Ionescu, O., Tavani, J. L. & Collange, J. (2021). Political extremism and perceived anomie: New evidence of political extremes’ symmetries and asymmetries with French samples. International Review of Social Psychology, 34, 1-16. http://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.573
Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (2019). Encuesta de población active (EPA). Percer trimestre de 2019 [Active Population Survey (EPA). Third quarter of 2019]. Available om line at: https://www.ine.es/daco/daco42/daco4211/epa0319.
Jetten, J. & Peters, K. (2019). The social psychology of inequality. Springer International Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28856-3
Konty, M. (2005). The cognitive foundations of the relationship between anomie and deviance. Criminology, 43, 107-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0011-1348.2005.00004.x
Lantz, J. & Harper, K. (1990). Anomic depression and the migrating family. Contemporary Family Therapy, 12, 153-163. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1007/BF00892493
McClosky, H. & Schaar, J. H. (1965). Psychological dimensions of anomy. American Sociological Review, 30, 14-40. https://doi.org/10.2307/2091771
Merton, R. K. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3, 672-682.
Merton, R. K. (1968). Social theory and social structure. Free Press.
Messner, S. F. & Rosenfeld, R. (2001). Crime and the American dream. Wadsworth.
Nachtwey, O. (2016). Die Abstiegsgesellschaft: Über das Aufbegehrem in der regressiven Moderne [The declining society. On rising up in the era of regressive modernity]. VSA Verlag.
Owen, J. (2011). Chavs: The demonization of the working class. Verso Books. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0267323113494045
Passas, N. (1995). Continuities in the anomie tradition. In F. A. Adler, W. S. Laufer & R. K. Merton (eds.). The legacy of anomie theory (pp. 91-112). Transaction.
Piketty, T. (2015). The economics of inequality. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674915565
Piketty, T. (2020). Capital and ideology. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4000/oeconomia.10580
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879-903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879
Rothstein, B. & Uslander, E. (2005). All far all: Equality, corruption, and social trust. World Politics, 58, 41-73. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2006.0022
Ruiz, J. (2022). Edificio España. El peligro de la desigualdad [Spain building. The danger of inequality]. Espasa.
Scheepers, D. & Ellemers, N. (2019). Status stress: Explaining defensiveness to the resolution of social inequality in members of dominant groups. In J. Jetten & K. Peters. The social psychology of inequality (pp. 294-316). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/doi:10.1007/978-3-030-28856-3_17
Shiau, W. L. & Luo, M. M. (2012). Factors affecting online group buying intention and satisfaction: A social exchange theory perspective. Computers in Human Behaviour, 28, 2431-2444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.030
Srole, L. (1956). Social integration and certain corollaries; An exploratory study. American Sociological Review, 21, 709-716. https://doi.org/10.2307/2088422
Surhone, L. M., Tennoe, M. T., & Henssonow, S. F. (2010). Snowball Sampling. Betascript Publishing.
Teo, T. (2018). Homo neoliberalus from personality to forms of subjectivity. Theory & Psychology, 28, 581-599. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354318794899
Teymoori, A., Bastian, B. & Jetten, J. (2017). Towards psychological analysis of anomie. Political Psychology, 38, 1009-1023. http://doi.org/10.111/pops.12377
Teymoori, A., Jetten, J., Bastian, B., Ariyanto, A., Autin, F., Ayub, N., Badea, C., Besta, T., Butera, F., Costa-Lopes, R., Ciu, L., Fantini, C., Finchilescu, G., Gaertner, L., Gollwitzer, M., Gómez, Á., González, R., Hong, Y., Jensen, D. H…. & Wohl, M. (2016). Revisiting the measurement of anomie. PLoS ONE 11(17): eo158370. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158370
Thorlindsson, T. & Bernburg, J. G. (2004). Durkheim’s theory of social order and deviance: A multi-level test. European Sociological Review, 20, 271-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/esr/jch025
Uslaner, E. M. (2002). The moral foundations of trust. Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.824504
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level: Why equality is better for everyone. Penguin Random House.
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2019). The inner level: How more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everyone’s well-being. Penguin Random House.
Williams, K. D. (2009). Ostracism: A temporal need-threat model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 275-313. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)00406-1
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Jesús M. Canto, Miguel A., Macarena Vallejo-Martín
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
All contents published in Escritos de Psicología are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. All about this license is available in the following link: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0>
Users can copy, use, redistribute, share and exhibit publicly as long as:
- The original source and authorship of the material are cited (Journal, Publisher and URL of the work).
- It is not used for comercial purposes.
- The existence of the license and its especifications are mentioned.
There are two sets of authors’ rights: moral and property rights. Moral rights are perpetual prerogatives, unrenounceable, not-transferable, unalienable, imprescriptible and inembargable. According to authors’ rights legislation, Escritos de Psicología recognizes and respects authors moral rights, as well as the ownership of property rights. The property rights are referred to the benefits that are gained by the use or the dissemination of works. Escritos de Psicología is published in an open access form and it is exclusively licenced by any means for doing or authorising distribution, dissemination, reproduction, , adaptation, translation or arrangement of works.
Authors are responsable for obtaining the necessary permission to use copyrighted images.
10.png)
ESCRITOS DE PSICOLOGÍA por 