ABSTRACT
In the modern age, people still depend on social living for material and emotional survival, and people possess a powerful urge to feel a sense of belonging to a larger group, or what people call a "society". Europe had a unique and globally transforming historical experience in that it gave birth to what is recognized as modernization, a process of institutional and individual change that produced revolutionary alterations in social structures and human consciousness. The rapid social change produced by modernization can be both liberating and psychologically discombobulating, depending on the cultural conditions in which the experience takes place. Modernization represents the most powerful engine in history for transforming social institutions and human consciousness. It is a process that necessarily affects all aspects of society. The individual's relationship theories and concepts, as well as contributions from other notable social scientists, provide the foundation for our study of the modernization of the Western world.
