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A General Discontent Disentangled: A Conceptual and Empirical Framework for Societal Unease

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  • Eefje Steenvoorden

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. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

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  • Eefje Steenvoorden, 2015. "A General Discontent Disentangled: A Conceptual and Empirical Framework for Societal Unease," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 85-110, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:124:y:2015:i:1:p:85-110
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0786-4
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    1. Richard Eckersley, 2019. "Letter to the editor: Are indicators telling us the real story about progress?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(2), pages 919-929, January.
    2. Mark Tano Palermo, 2020. "From Social Deviance to Art: Vandalism, Illicit Dumping, and the Transformation of Matter and Form," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Ali Teymoori & Jolanda Jetten & Brock Bastian & Amarina Ariyanto & Frédérique Autin & Nadia Ayub & Constantina Badea & Tomasz Besta & Fabrizio Butera & Rui Costa-Lopes & Lijuan Cui & Carole Fantini & , 2016. "Revisiting the Measurement of Anomie," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-27, July.

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