Mentalities of Transformation

We are living in times of fundamental social upheaval – from the digitalization of our working and personal lives, to the consequences of demographic change and socio-ecological issues, to the COVID-19-pandemic and energy crises. All of these developments are challenging our social and growth models and the way we work and live. The idea that change automatically means progress is increasingly losing substance and credibility. As a result, status positions are being defended with greater intensity and energy, and divisions and polarisation within the social fabric are becoming more apparent. Conflicts over the surrender of achievements, but also over the fight for new opportunities, are on the rise. 

The SOFI project “Mentalities of Transformation” looks at the mentalities of employees at the breaking points of these social upheavals: at the (different) ways in which they orient themselves in the social world, act within it, and shape it. It also examines the extent to which these mentalities can be effective as resources that strengthen democratic developments and resist authoritarian concepts of order. 

Research questions and research design 

What shapes and forms mentalities? What role do the social circumstances and life situations play in which employees find themselves inside and outside the company and in their immediate social environment—such as family, neighborhood, clubs, and community—and with which they have to deal? 

How do mentalities contribute to coping with processes of social change? What values and attitudes can employees (and their households) bring to bear when confronted with changes or threats to their working and living environments? 

Since these questions cannot be adequately answered by standardized opinion polls, the project has adopted a qualitative research design and, thanks to its relatively long duration, also attempts to investigate the stability and adaptability of mentalities. The empirical surveys focus on in-depth interviews with employees, group discussions within companies, and interviews in the immediate social environment. 

The fields of investigation selected are socio-economic constellations in which the aforementioned dynamics of change in contemporary society appear to be intensifying and which we assume pose particular challenges to the working and living conditions, as well as the mentalities and behavioral patterns, of employees and their households. The study focuses on four “transformation constellations” with respondents in different fields of activity and from different professional and social milieus: 

• industrial skilled and technical knowledge work and white-collar work in the automotive cluster in the Stuttgart region,
• financial and airport services in the Frankfurt am Main region,
• nursing and elderly care services in southeastern Thuringia, and
• fields of activity and employee groups in the (old) industrial cores of the Ruhr area and the Rhineland mining region.