关键词: 社会文化变迁, 表征相似性, 模式分析, 跨尺度, 老年人心理健康

Abstract: In recent years, social transformation and economic development in China have changed people’s behavior, lifestyle, and values, directly affecting individuals’ mental state and behavior. However, due to the limitations of research methods, previous studies explored target variables from a single dimension, lacking exploration of the multi-dimensional structure of complex variables and unable to compare cross-scale data directly. Therefore, social and cultural psychology research needs to incorporate a systems science perspective to study and understand the structure and pattern of social changes. This study introduced a new approach for exploring social change from the perspective of pattern——representational similarity analysis (RSA). Based on The Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS)-Longitudinal Data(1998-2018), we demonstrated the construction process of representation similarity matrixes and provided examples for multivariable-unidimensional pattern analysis (time, space, mental space), multivariable cross-dimensional pattern analysis (mental space-time, mental space-space, mental space-time-space), cross-scale model analysis (region-country), conceptual model analysis, and the coupling analysis between RSA and traditional method. This study found that the pattern and level of economic development moderated the similarity between the regional mental health change pattern and the overall pattern of the elderly. In addition, the cultural looseness-tightness concept model and the inter-regional pattern of mental health in the elderly have significant similarities. These results showed that RSA analysis could explore the relationship between variables from the perspective of patterns, and can also make direct quantitative comparisons of cross-scale data. Overall, this study introduces different application methods of RSA in social change research through example demonstrations. Exploring psychological and behavioral changes in social change from a pattern perspective broadens the way for future exploration.

Key words: Social and cultural change, Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), Pattern analysis, Cross scale, mental health of elderly