Existential anxiety in the context of social transformation: competition, anomie and psychological adjustment

my country's 25 years of reform and opening up have significantly accelerated the pace of social change, leading to a substantial increase in various stressors, including life events. This is mainly manifested in the following ways:

(1) The social anomie accompanying this transformation has created unprecedented difficulties for members of society in adapting, exacerbating their inherent existential anxieties and making them acutely aware of the uncertainty and insecurity of their living environment. This is especially true for those with low psychological resilience and weak coping and adjustment abilities, who are prone to psychological distress.

(2) As competition has been introduced into all areas of social life, the increasingly fierce competition, while providing opportunities for people to fully demonstrate their potential and realize their self-worth, has also brought considerable pressure, making them more prone to setbacks and significantly increasing the probability of encountering negative (or adverse) life events.

(3) The diversified development of society has provided people with more freedom of choice, such as in education, career choice, mate selection, and the choice of life beliefs and lifestyles. It is precisely because of these opportunities for free choice that the psychological approach-avoidance conflict in individual choices has increased. (4) Increased social mobility (including changes in socioeconomic status, occupation, and geographical migration) and expanded social interactions have led to significant changes in people's living environment and lifestyle, resulting in numerous life events. In addition, traffic congestion, overcrowded housing, and environmental pollution have brought various inconveniences and troubles to people's lives and work, becoming significant stressors that force people to cope.

A 2002 study by Chinese scholars Yang Tingzhong et al., using a sample of 3,760 residents from four cities—Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Taiyuan—found that the primary source of social transformation pressure is the challenge of competition and change. However, rapid social change and social anomie can create unfair competition and uncertainty pressures on a large proportion of society. Among the surveyed urban residents, 31.32% felt moderate pressure regarding "unfair competition," 16.06% felt significant pressure, and 5.04% felt very significant pressure. The odds ratio (OR) for "unfair competition" contributing to health risk stress (HRS) was 1.50; regarding "uncertainty," 31.21% of respondents reported moderate stress, 9.27% ​​reported significant stress, and 2.18% reported very significant stress. The OR for "uncertainty" contributing to HRS was 1.96.

Humans live in social groups bound by certain social relationships, including family, neighborhood, friends, and work groups. These basic social groups together constitute a social network. Whether the relationships within this social network are harmonious and mutually supportive is not only a factor influencing health but also a fundamental aspect of health. Research interest in social support arose against the backdrop of exploring the impact of life stress on mental and physical health. In the politically turbulent 1960s in the United States, people experienced increasing life stress, leading to a continuous deterioration in mental and physical health and a high incidence of suicide. Against this social backdrop, sociologists and psychologists began exploring the relationship between life stress and mental and physical health. Numerous studies have found that the same stressful situation has different effects on different people; those who receive higher levels of psychological or physical support from partners, friends, or family members are healthier both physically and mentally than those who receive less support.

Social support, a concept in sociopathology primarily focused on the social causes of psychosomatic disorders, was proposed in the 1970s. The understanding of social support can be broadly divided into two categories: first, objective, visible, or actual support, including direct material assistance and the existence and participation in social networks and group relationships; second, subjective, experienced, and emotional support, including an individual's emotional experience and satisfaction with being respected, supported, and understood in society. Over the following two decades, extensive research has been conducted on the relationship between social support and psychosomatic health. Most scholars believe that good social support is beneficial to psychosomatic health, while the existence of poor social relationships is detrimental. There are still disagreements regarding the impact or mechanism of social support on individual mental health, generally existing in two different viewpoints and hypothetical models:

(1) Main Effect Model: This model posits that social support has a generally beneficial effect on individual health. Its health-preserving effect is not necessarily limited to situations of psychological stress, but rather lies in maintaining a positive emotional experience and physical and mental state in daily life, thus benefiting mental health.

(2) Buffer Model: This model argues that social support is only linked to individual health under stress conditions. It buffers the negative impact of stressful events on physical and mental well-being, maintaining and improving the individual's level of physical and mental health. The buffering effect of social support can be either general or specific. Generality means that any type of social support can buffer any type of stressful event; specificity means that a particular type of social support only buffers a specific type of stressful event.