Generational replacement is a theory proposed by Paul R. Abramson and

Ronald Inglehart Ronald F. Inglehart (September 5, 1934 – May 8, 2021) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He was director of the World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists who have carried out representati ...

that attributes changes in values between young people and their elders to their different circumstances growing up. Because people's formative experiences in pre-adult years tend to shape them throughout later life, if the younger birth cohorts in a given society have experienced fundamentally different conditions than those that shaped older birth cohorts, then there will be substantial and persisting differences between the basic values of older and younger generations. As the younger birth cohorts gradually replace the older ones over time, one will observe changes in the values and behavior of the population of that society. The main cause of generational replacement in Abramson and Inglehart's article, "Generational Replacement and Value Change in Eight West European Societies", was the shift from materialist to postmaterialist values in advanced industrial societies. People concerned with "maintaining order" and "fighting rising prices" are classified as

materialists Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...

, whilst "giving the people more say" and "freedom of speech" are classified as expressing

postmaterialism In sociology, postmaterialism is the transformation of individual values from materialist, physical, and economic to new individual values of autonomy and self-expression. The term was popularized by the political scientist Ronald Inglehart in ...

. This shift coincides with the post-1945 cohorts of Western societies that experienced increased prosperity, while the older cohorts had been shaped by economic and physical insecurity linked with the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

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