Individual Differences in Adaptation to Social Change

Abstract

There are many ways to describe a social transformation of the magnitude that took place in Poland in last decade of the twentieth century. Among the most important is the sudden increase in the number and variety of options available in most domains of life, from education and careers to consumer goods and services. We analyze two general strategies people use to make choices or set goals in these domains. In one, called an interval strategy, individuals are less discriminating and are willing to accept a large number of possible goals. Hence, they adapt well when there is a scarcity of attractive options, but if the environment is rich in possibilities, their strategy can force them to deal with an overwhelming amount of information, and, as a result, to become ineffective. The other method of goal setting, called a point strategy, refers to people who are discriminating in their choices and typically reject a large number of options as not good enough. Such people thrive in an environment where there are plenty of good options; however, when such options are few and far between, they become frustrated and adapt poorly. After discussing these strategies we describe some recent studies that test three hypotheses suggested by our model: (1) Point strategists adapt better to the transition than interval strategists if their resources are significant; whereas interval strategists adapt better than point strategists if their resources are meager. (2) Success and failure produce more extreme emotional reactions in point strategists than in interval strategists. (3) Among unemployed individuals with few resources (e.g., they are unskilled), those who are interval strategists find a job more rapidly than do point strategists.