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Revisiting the Measurement of Anomie

Teymoori A 1 , Jetten J 1 , Bastian B 2 , Ariyanto A 3 , Autin F 4 , Ayub N 5 Show all authors , Badea C 6 , Besta T 7 , Butera F 4 , Costa-Lopes R 8 , Cui L 9 , Fantini C 10 , Finchilescu G 11 , Gaertner L 12 , Gollwitzer M 13 , Gómez Á 14 , González R 15 , Hong YY 16 , Jensen DH 17 , Karasawa M 18 , Kessler T 19 , Klein O 10 , Lima M 20 , Mähönen TA 21 , Megevand L 22 , Morton T 23 , Paladino P 24 , Polya T 25 , Ruza A 26 , Shahrazad W 27 , Sharma S 28 , Torres AR 29 , van der Bles AM 30 , Wohl M 31

Affiliations 

  • 1 University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
  • 2 University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  • 3 University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
  • 4 University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 5 Institute of Business Management, Karachi, Pakistan
  • 6 Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris, France
  • 7 University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland
  • 8 University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 9 East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
  • 10 Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
  • 11 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 12 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America
  • 13 Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany
  • 14 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, UNED, Madrid, Spain
  • 15 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
  • 16 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
  • 17 Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
  • 18 Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
  • 19 University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany
  • 20 Federal University of Sergipe, Sergipe, Brazil
  • 21 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  • 22 ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 23 University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom
  • 24 University of Trento, Trento, Italy
  • 25 Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
  • 26 Daugavpils University, Daugavpils, Latvia
  • 27 National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
  • 28 Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India
  • 29 Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil
  • 30 University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
  • 31 Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
PLoS One, 2016;11(7):e0158370.
PMID: 27383133 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158370

Abstract

Sociologists coined the term "anomie" to describe societies that are characterized by disintegration and deregulation. Extending beyond conceptualizations of anomie that conflate the measurements of anomie as 'a state of society' and as a 'state of mind', we disentangle these conceptualizations and develop an analysis and measure of this phenomenon focusing on anomie as a perception of the 'state of society'. We propose that anomie encompasses two dimensions: a perceived breakdown in social fabric (i.e., disintegration as lack of trust and erosion of moral standards) and a perceived breakdown in leadership (i.e., deregulation as lack of legitimacy and effectiveness of leadership). Across six studies we present evidence for the validity of the new measure, the Perception of Anomie Scale (PAS). Studies 1a and 1b provide evidence for the proposed factor structure and internal consistency of PAS. Studies 2a-c provide evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Finally, assessing PAS in 28 countries, we show that PAS correlates with national indicators of societal functioning and that PAS predicts national identification and well-being (Studies 3a & 3b). The broader implications of the anomie construct for the study of group processes are discussed.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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