Cultural Beliefs About Societal Change: A Three-Mode Principal Component Analysis in China, Australia, and Japan

Abstract

People’s beliefs about where society has come from and where it is going have personal and political consequences. Here, we conduct a detailed investigation of these beliefs through re-analyzing Kashima, Shi, et al.’s (Study 2, n = 320) data from China, Australia, and Japan. Kashima, Shi, et al. identified a “folk theory of social change” (FTSC) belief that people in society become more competent over time, but less warm and moral. Using three-mode principal component analysis, an under-utilized analytical method in psychology, we identified two additional narratives: Utopianism/Dystopianism (people becoming generally better or worse over time) and Expansion/Contraction (an increase/decrease..