title: Revisiting the Measurement of Anomie.
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.
authors.affiliation: University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Teymoori
authors.affiliation: University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Jolanda
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jetten
authors.affiliation: University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Brock
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bastian
authors.affiliation: University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
authors.forename: Amarina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ariyanto
authors.affiliation: University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Frédérique
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Autin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Business Management, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ayub
authors.affiliation: Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Constantina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Badea
authors.affiliation: University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland.
authors.forename: Tomasz
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authors.lastname: Besta
authors.affiliation: University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Butera
authors.affiliation: University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Costa-Lopes
authors.affiliation: East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Lijuan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Carole
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authors.lastname: Fantini
authors.affiliation: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
authors.forename: Gillian
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authors.lastname: Finchilescu
authors.affiliation: University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: Lowell
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authors.lastname: Gaertner
authors.affiliation: Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Mario
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authors.lastname: Gollwitzer
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, UNED, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Ángel
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.affiliation: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Roberto
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authors.lastname: González
authors.affiliation: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Ying Yi
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Dorthe Høj
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
authors.forename: Minoru
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authors.lastname: Karasawa
authors.affiliation: University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
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authors.lastname: Kessler
authors.affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.affiliation: Federal University of Sergipe, Sergipe, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lima
authors.affiliation: University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Tuuli Anna
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Mähönen
authors.affiliation: ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Megevand
authors.affiliation: University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Thomas
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authors.lastname: Morton
authors.affiliation: University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Paladino
authors.affiliation: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Tibor
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authors.lastname: Polya
authors.affiliation: Daugavpils University, Daugavpils, Latvia.
authors.forename: Aleksejs
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruza
authors.affiliation: National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Wan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shahrazad
authors.affiliation: Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India.
authors.forename: Sushama
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil.
authors.forename: Ana Raquel
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.affiliation: University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anne Marthe
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: van der Bles
authors.affiliation: Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Michael
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authors.lastname: Wohl
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000850:Anomie; D001315:Australia; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009656:North America; D011057:Politics; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D035502:Trust; D055815:Young Adult