2007: Analysis and Forecast of the Social Situation in China ()

Author: Ru Xin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: This book comes with a CD! In the process of comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society and strengthening harmonious society construction, governments at all levels are paying increasing attention to the investigation and analysis of social attitudes. This is mainly because, with the improvement of material living standards, people are also placing greater importance on it. Moreover, social attitudes are closely linked to people's behavioral choices. The needs, expectations, desires, satisfaction, sense of security, sense of belonging, sense of happiness, sense of achievement, and social identity of the masses are an important aspect for analyzing social situations and grasping trends in development. However, it must be noted that the influencing factors of social attitudes are very complex and cannot be simply represented by certain social attitude indicators to reflect performance, as doing so may sometimes lead to misunderstandings. For example, some local governments now include happiness in development evaluation indicators, which should be done with caution. Research by academia worldwide, including in China, on happiness has shown that happiness is a subjective feeling and does not necessarily represent a universally recognized form of happiness. It is not directly related to the abundance of wealth or the level of living standards. Factors that may have a greater impact on happiness include the level of expectations, the magnitude of desires, the closeness of the reference comparison object, the degree of social openness, and the speed of social change. Therefore, the happiness of a billionaire and that of a local villager may not differ significantly, and happiness does not change significantly with the improvement of living standards. However, studying changes in social attitudes is not without meaning. For example, certain social attitude indicators can at least tell us that the groups most likely to produce dissatisfaction may not be those who are materially disadvantaged, but rather those whose expectations greatly differ from their own living standards. The authors of this book come from professional research and survey institutions, universities, and relevant government research departments. Except for the main report, the views of the individual authors belong solely to the authors themselves and do not represent the main research team or the institutions to which the authors belong.