ABSTRACT
The China anomie research consisted of the development of a theoretical framework, the design of a questionnaire to operationalise those theoretical concepts, and the administration of the questionnaire to a randomly chosen sample of 4,000 urban Chinese in 1996. The theoretical basis of the research has repeatedly emphasised that anomie is a social property reflected by individuals’ attitudes, opinions, and perceptions. The anomie scale is a measure of individuals’ state of mind in which they as individuals or groups are not sure about their future, cannot turn to anyone for trust, and feel confused about social norms and appropriate behavioural patterns. People living in eastern or in highly developed cities have stronger feelings of individual anomie than do people living in other kinds of cities. The instability block has four variables: discontent, distrust, pessimism, and individual anomie. Arrows with dashed lines represent causal flows from variables in the socio-economic status block to variables in the instability block.
