关键词: 社会流动信念, 社会变迁与人类发展理论, 横断历史元分析, 社会变迁

Abstract: Social mobility beliefs refer to individuals' perceptions and expectations of the possibility of mobility across social classes for themselves or for others, and play an important role in promoting upward mobility, social fairness, and social stability. Over the past decade, China has experienced rapid and multifaceted social changes. The economy has continued to grow, higher education has further expanded, the Internet has been widely adopted, and the legal and anti-corruption systems have undergone substantial development. At the same time, economic inequality has remained at a relatively high level, and competition in education and the labor market has intensified. However, whether Chinese people's social mobility beliefs have shifted along with these societal changes remains unclear. The present research meta-analyzed 50 studies conducted between 2014 and 2024, with 57 independent samples and 28,089 participants, and further examined the macro-social correlates of these beliefs.
We conducted cross-temporal meta-analysis with the year of data collection as the predictor, while controlling for sample type, measurement dimension, and scale type. We also examined associations between social mobility beliefs and a set of macro-social indicators—including modernization indicators (e.g., GDP per capita, gross enrollment rate in higher education, urbanization rate, and Internet penetration rate), governance indicators (e.g., the number of effective laws, the number of corruption-related cases filed, and national education expenditure), and economic risk indicators (e.g., the Gini coefficient and the extent of economic slowdown). Results showed that, contrary to predictions of decline, Chinese people's social mobility beliefs remained stable from 2014 to 2024, showing no significant temporal trend. Subgroup analyses across measurement dimensions (individual-level vs. society-level beliefs) and sample groups (middle school students, college students, and adults) revealed no significant differences in temporal trends. The macro-social analyses revealed a differentiated pattern. Indicators of economic and educational development, including GDP per capita, higher education enrollment, urbanization, and Internet penetration, were generally positively associated with social mobility beliefs. Several indicators of social governance, including education expenditure, social security expenditure, the number of effective laws, and anti-corruption activity, also showed positive associations across multiple time lags. By contrast, economic-risk indicators, such as the Gini coefficient and the extent of economic slowdown, showed weaker and less consistent relationships with social mobility beliefs.
Overall, the present research shows that social mobility beliefs in Chinese samples remained relatively stable during a decade of substantial social transformation. The findings extend research on social change and human development by demonstrating that the psychological consequences of macro-social change may depend on the specific dimension of change under consideration. They also highlight the value of distinguishing developmental, governance, and economic-risk conditions when examining long-term changes in social attitudes. More broadly, this study provides evidence that continuity in social beliefs can coexist with rapid structural transformation and offers a macro-social perspective on the persistence and change of social attitudes in contemporary China.

Key words: social mobility belief, cross-temporal meta-analysis, social change, macro-social indicators, China