Authors: Eefje H Steenvoorden
Publish Date: 2014/11/21
Volume: 124, Issue: 1, Pages: 85-110
Abstract
Surveys show discontent with society to be prevalent among the general public across western societies However this undercurrent here called societal unease has received little scientific attention This article has four aims First it proposes a conceptual model of societal unease by integrating a broad range of interdisciplinary literature Second it tests this conceptual model empirically with survey data from the Netherlands Confirmatory factor analyses confirm a latent dimension of societal unease behind attitudes about five aspects of society Third it shows societal unease to be highly related to societal pessimism moderately to anomia and weakly to happiness Finally it explores the association of societal unease with various demographic attitudinal and behavior characteristics
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