Xinyin Chen & Rainer K. Silbereisen 
Social Change and Human Development 
Concept and Results

Today′s world is characterized by a set of overarching trends that often come under the rubric of social change. In this innovative volume, Rainer K. Silbereisen and Xinyin Chen bring together, for the first time, international experts in the field to examine how changes in our social world impact on our individual development.

Divided into four parts, the book explores the major socio-political and technological changes that have taken place around the world – from post- from the rapid upheavals in 1990s Europe to the gradual changes in parts of East Asia – and explains how these developments interplay with human development across the lifespan.

Human Development and Social Change is a useful resource for students and researchers involved in all areas of human development, including developmental psychology, sociology and education.

Table of Content

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

How Social Change Affects Individual Adaptation – Rainer K Silbereisen and Xinyin Chen

PART TWO: DYNAMIC OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND INDIVIDUAL RESPONSES – Steffen Schmidt

A Challenge-Response-Model in Research on Social Change

Life Management in Developmental Settings of Modernity – Jochen Brandtstädter

Challenges to the Adaptive Self

Conceptualizing the Dynamics of Lives and Historical Times – Ross Macmillan and Arturo Baiocchi

Life-Course Phenomena, Institutional Dynamics and Socio-Historical Change

PART THREE: DETERMINANTS ON THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

Globalization, Institutional Filters and Changing Life-Course – Dirk Hofäcker et al

Patterns in Modern Societies

Demands of Social Change and Psychosocial Adjustment – Rainer K Silbereisen et al

Globalization, Social Inequality and Individual Agency in Human Development – Jutta Heckhausen

Social Change for Better or Worse?

PART FOUR: TRANSITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Institutional Responses to Social Change in Comparative Perspective – Reinhold Sackmann

Class, Stratification and Personality under Conditions of Apparent Social Stability and of Radical Social Change – Melvin L Kohn

Children′s Socio-Emotional Functioning and Adjustment in the Changing Chinese Society – Xinyin Chen and Hiuchang Chen

Social Change and Premarital Sexual Behaviour and Attitudes in Vietnam – Rukmalie Jayakody et al

Social Change and Transition Experiences among Young Adults in Britain – Ingrid Schoon

Political Elites as an Agent of Social Change – Jacek Wasilewski

The Polish Perspective

About the author

Rainer K. Silbereisen was Professor and Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology at the University of Jena (Germany), Adjunct Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State University (USA), and is currently Director of the Center for Applied Developmental Science (CADS). He is Fellow of the American Psychological Association and Member of the European Academy of Sciences (London). He was Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Development and of the journal European Psychologist. He was Chair of the Board of the German Social Science Infrastructure Services (GESIS), is a former President of the German Psychological Society and of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD). He was until recently President of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsy S) and is now Past-President. A psychologist by training, he has been involved in interdisciplinary large scale research on human development across the life-span, and in particular on the role of social change in positive and maladaptive human development, utilizing a cross-cultural and biopsychosocial format. With the help of private foundations, he has established training programs for young investigators from developing countries. He has edited about 20 books and published more than 250 scholarly articles.