Representation similarity analysis – A new perspective to study sociocultural change: Taking the mental health of elderly people as an example

Abstract: In recent years, social transformation and economic development in China have changed people’s behaviour, lifestyles, and values and have directly affected individuals’ mental state and behaviour. However, due to the limitations of research methods, previous studies have explored target variables from a single dimension. They have lacked exploration of the multidimensional structure of complex variables and have been unable to directly compare cross-scale data. 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 introduces 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 demonstrate the process of the construction of representation similarity matrices and provide examples of 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 coupling analysis between RSA and traditional methods.
This study finds that the pattern and level of economic development moderates the similarity between regional mental health change patterns and the overall pattern of elderly individuals. In addition, the cultural looseness-tightness concept model and the interregional pattern of mental health among elderly individuals have significant similarities. These results show that RSA analysis can explore the relationship between variables from the perspective of patterns and can make direct quantitative comparisons of cross-scale data.
Overall, this study introduces different methods for the application of RSA in social change research through demonstrative examples. The exploration of psychological and behavioural changes in social change from a pattern perspective paves the way for future exploration.