Psychosocial Resources for Social Change

With ongoing social change people are faced with a variety of demands in several life domains such as work, family, and public life. The way they appraise and cope with these demands as well as the effectiveness of coping strategies depend on the resources they possess (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Theoretical considerations and past research identified resources which can be helpful to master social change-related demands. These can be grouped into (1) personal resources such as optimism, change-related self-efficacy, and explorative tendencies, (2) proximal social resources (support from relatives and friends), and (3) distal social resources (embeddedness in the community and involvement in clubs, parishes etc.)...