Using Correlation Adaptometry Method in Assessing Societal Stress: a Ukrainian Case

TL;DR

This paper applies the correlation adaptometry method to Ukrainian society from 2009-2012, demonstrating that societal stress manifests through increased correlations and dispersion among societal characteristics during political elections.

Contribution

It introduces the novel application of biological correlation adaptometry to measure societal stress, providing empirical evidence of its validity in a social context.

Findings

Increased correlations among societal variables during elections

Higher dispersion of societal characteristics during stress periods

Empirical support for biological stress models in social systems

Abstract

Societal stress may cause far reaching political, economic and even geological effects. Nevertheless, it is still scarcely investigated, contrary to social stress, which an individual faces in their interactions within a society. It is natural to suppose that in its adaptation, society demonstrates the same objective laws that biological population does, since they are, in fact, the closest systems. In the survey, the hypothesis is tested that the collective stress effect holds true in society, which must appear (as it happens according to correlation adaptometry method in biological systems) in escalation of both correlations between societal characteristics and their dispersion. Both tends are observed in Ukrainian society during 2009-2012, as a result of political elections that affect societal anxiety.