The Mechanisms of Generational Change: Triggers and Processes

Peter Hart-Brinson

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Prepared for 2018 ASA Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA

Abstract

The persistent use of generational labels like “” by media commentators, research firms, and even sociologists shows that the processes by which and generational change are created remain poorly understood. Although social scientists agree upon the basic formula for sound generational analysis [cohort replacement x (impressionable-years hypothesis + persistence hypothesis)], this consensus obscures fundamental terminological problems and conceptual dilemmas that continue to stifle generational research. This paper describes the four interlinked mechanisms that are required to produce generational change and argues that studying the relations between two of the linked mechanisms—structural triggers and agentic processes—helps to overcome the persistent ambiguities in generational theory and can provide a measure of clarity for an empirical research program on generational change. A catalog of generational triggers is developed, and the utility of the mechanism-centered approach to generational analysis is illustrated with familiar examples.

Introduction

To the extent that most sociologists read much about generational change, it probably takes the form of popular commentaries on the distinctive characteristics of Millennials (soon to be followed Z, who are about to have their turn as the target of older cohorts’ mix of

1 disdain about youth and nostalgia about their own past) or the annual Beloit College Mindset

List, which helps to introduce professors to their new first-year students and their supposed realms of life experience. There is a considerable disconnect between this popular discourse and the scholarly fields of cohort analysis (following Ryder 1965) and the classic literature on generational change (e.g. Elder 1974; Kertzer 1983; Schnittker, Freese and Powell 2003;

Schuman and Scott 1989) that spans fields from aging and the life course to collective memory.

Nevertheless, some fundamental similarities between these two discourses on generations sometimes lead scholars (e.g. Milkman 2017; Pelz and Smidt 2015; Ross and Rouse 2015;

Twenge, Campbell and Freeman 2012) and polling firms like the Pew Research Center to adopt the generational labels established by the marketing consultants and pop culture critics (most notably Howe and Strauss 2000; Strauss and Howe 1991); in doing so, they implicitly legitimate a theory of generations that has been described best as “grotesque ineptness” (Jaeger 1985, p.

282).

This problem is more than just a question of labels and disciplinary boundary work; it also a manifestation of unresolved ambiguities in how we theorize generations and how we conduct research on generational change. Contemporary scholars inherit these ambiguities from generational theory itself and from how the concept has evolved operationally over decades of research; moreover, to the extent that they remain unacknowledged, they continue to lead research astray and perpetuate the problem.

How we can begin to resolve these ambiguities and develop a scientifically-sound research agenda on generational change is the subject of this paper. I begin by describing two competing paradigms in generational analysis, focusing on Mannheim’s (1952 [1928]) generational theory since it is the primary theoretical foundation for most social scientific

2 analyses of generational change. Then, I describe three unresolved conceptual ambiguities in generational theory that contribute to theoretical and methodological uncertainty about how to carry out research on generational change. Next, I adopt a mechanism-centered approach to the problem of generations and describe the four interlinked types of mechanisms that are required to produce generational change, and I propose that studying the relations between two of the mechanisms can help to manage the uncertainty. Finally, I develop a catalog of generational triggers and illustrate the merit of taking a mechanism-centered approach to generational change with common examples.

Two Generational Paradigms

In his intellectual history of the generation concept, historian Hans Jaeger (1985) demonstrates that most research and theorizing about the concept of generations has fallen into two broad paradigms, which he calls the “pulse-rate” and “imprint” hypotheses. Most sociologists are familiar with both. The paramount example of the imprint paradigm is Karl

Mannheim’s (1952 [1928]) “The Problem of Generations,” which serves as the theoretical foundation of almost all sociological research. The mode of discourse about generations that one encounters in popular culture—contrasting Millennials, with , with , and so on—exemplifies the pulse-rate paradigm. Both paradigms agree that young cohorts develop distinctive worldviews and behaviors, which persist throughout the life course, because of the social conditions they encountered during their formative years. The essential difference can be put simply: the imprint paradigm assumes that generations emerge only in response to a specific “trigger” (Mannheim 1952 [1928], p. 310) while the pulse-rate paradigm assumes that a

3 society’s entire population can be divided into a series of (mutually exclusive) generations that emerge at regular intervals, indexed to the rhythm of the life course.

Let us quickly dispense with the pulse-rate paradigm. Its foremost contemporary proponents are the popular historians and marketing consultants, William Strauss and Neil

Howe. In their master treatise (Strauss and Howe 1991), they attempt to explain America’s history and future (from 1584 until 2069) according to a four-part repeating cycle of generations that are 22 years in length, each of which is characterized by a signature “peer personality.”

These authors are widely credited with coining the term “Millennial,” and they have together authored seven books on generations and founded a consulting firm to help organizations adapt to generational change. This theory builds on José Ortega y Gasset’s attempt to explain Western

Europe’s entire history in terms of a 15-year generational cycle beginning in the year 1626—

René Descartes’ 30th birthday.

It barely warrants mentioning how comically flawed each thesis is from its opening premises: the arbitrary starting dates, the lack of evidence that life stages are of a fixed length, the reality of changing life expectancies and the social construction of the life course. Indeed, this absurdity prompts Jaeger to remark that “the grotesque ineptness of this thesis prohibits any closer scrutiny” (p. 282). Yet, every time labels like “Generation X,” “Millennials,” and the

“” are uttered, they breathe fresh life into the pulse-rate paradigm. Quite simply, there is no credible evidence that a society’s entire population is organized neatly into a succession of cohorts of roughly equivalent length that are indexed to the length of life stages, but polling firms and academics who adopt the terminology perpetuate the myth that there is.

In contrast to the social astrology of the pulse-rate paradigm, the imprint paradigm is our social astronomy, grounded in sound theory and ample evidence. Both paradigms share the view

4 that society can be divided into a series of cohorts, that members of young cohorts develop distinctive worldviews and patterns of behavior to the extent the structural and historical conditions during their impressionable years (late adolescence to early adulthood) are different from those of their elders, and that these worldviews and patterns of behavior remain relatively stable even as they age. It is the shared characteristics of the two paradigms that continue to offer a veneer of plausibility to the pulse-rate paradigm, but the differences are equally consequential: the imprint paradigm assumes that generations must be made out of cohorts and that they are made by some combination of structure and agency—of changed historical events and social structures that make an “imprint” on impressionable minds, combined with the social activity of young people interacting with one another and with other cohorts.

Karl Mannheim’s “The Problem of Generations” remains the most influential statement of the imprint paradigm. Crucially, Mannheim distinguishes between the cohort (“generation location”) and the actual generation:

Whereas mere common ‘location’ in a generation is of only potential significance, a

generation as an actuality is constituted when similarly ‘located’ contemporaries

participate in a common destiny and in the ideas and concepts which are in some way

bound up with its unfolding. (Mannheim 1952 [1928], p. 306)

In other words, simply sharing the same generation location in socio-historical time is only a necessary precondition for an actual generation to emerge; it also requires exposure to social conditions or events (triggers) that cause young cohorts to perceive and experience the world differently than their elders (or, as Mannheim calls it, “the social and intellectual symptoms of a process of dynamic de-stabilization” (p. 303)).

5 Moreover, each generation as an actuality is made up of multiple “generation units,” each of which is a concrete group who responds to the shared conditions of the actual generation in different ways. The interactions of these generation units with one another and with members of other cohorts produces the “generation entelechy”—the visible, social manifestation of the distinctive characteristics of the actual generation’s “fresh contact” (Mannheim 1952 [1928], p.

293) with society. In sum, the empirical evidence we see of generational change in society (the generation entelechy) is the outcome of the social activity of multiple generation units that together comprise the actual generation—which itself is distinguished from the cohort by its unique socio-temporal encounter with history.

Mannheim’s theory of generations implies a particularistic and inductive approach to identifying and analyzing generational change, in contrast to the universalistic and deductive approach of the pulse-rate paradigm. Although the shared characteristics of both paradigms have been validated extensively in empirical research (Alwin, Cohen and Newcomb 1991; Alwin and

Krosnick 1991; Glenn 1980; Jennings and Niemi 1981; Miller and Sears 1986; Schuman and

Scott 1989; Sears and Funk 1999), Mannheim’s theory has proven to be more suitable for empirical research because it allows the analyst to focus on specific events and changes, like the

Great Depression (Elder 1974), changing meanings of feminism (Schnittker, Freese and Powell

2003), and differences in collective memory (Corning and Schuman 2015).

Conceptual Dilemmas of Generational Theory

Nevertheless, three significant ambiguities exist within Mannheim’s theory that have inhibited the emergence of a coherent of generations. The first concerns the relationship between cohort and generation. Although Mannheim clearly distinguishes between

6 the generation location (cohort) and the generation as an actuality, it is unclear whether he conceives of the generation to be a subset of a cohort or whether he conceives of only some cohorts to be actual generations. In my own work (Hart-Brinson 2014), I have argued for the former interpretation since there is considerable heterogeneity within cohorts that, practically speaking, ensures that not all members of a cohort experience significant historical events like the (Elder 1974), women’s suffrage (Firebaugh and Chen 1995), and the Civil

Rights Movement (Griffin 2004) in the way presumed by generational theory. In this interpretation, generations are distinguished from cohorts by the set of cultural and social psychological processes that cause them to develop distinctive worldviews, so analyzing cohorts and analyzing generations are two different things.

However, the latter interpretation more clearly distinguishes the imprint paradigm from the pulse-rate paradigm, and it is also the interpretation that is implicit in most of the literature. It is common practice to empirically measure generational change in terms of cohorts, such that generational change and cohort replacement have become synonymous. This is in part due to the numerous meanings of “generation” (Alwin and McCammon 2007; Kertzer 1983), but it is also due to the influence of Ryder’s (1965) classic explication of the cohort concept. There is thus a considerable divide in the literature between those who study generational change from a demographic perspective, using longitudinal data and analytic methods designed to distinguish age, period, and cohort effects (Alwin 1990; Brewster and Padavic 2000; Firebaugh and Davis

1988; Harding and Jencks 2003; Loftus 2001; Schwadel and Garneau 2014; Treas 2002), and those who study generational change from interpretive and historical perspectives, in terms of identities, discourses, and collective mentalities (Corsten 1999; Edmunds and Turner 2002; Esler

1984; McMullin, Comeau and Jovic 2007; Plummer 2010; Whittier 1997).

7 A second ambiguity within Mannheim’s generational theory concerns the dynamics of structure and agency in producing generational change. Although one hesitates to even mention the words, lest readers’ eyes roll out of their heads, structure and agency matter for generational theory in a very specific way—one which makes it unnecessary (even counterproductive) to think in terms of the cyclical model of structure and agency in which each affects the other.

Indeed, “ambiguity” is probably the wrong word here; the dynamics of structure and agency inherent in generational theory require the analyst to focus on two separate moments in the creation of new generations—a structural moment of influence on young cohorts (which makes them a generation as an actuality) and an agentic moment of change created by young cohorts (in generation units).

On the structural side, the indispensable social dynamic of the generation is the ways in which the historical and structural forces created by older cohorts shape young cohorts’ worldviews during their formative years. To create a new generation, young cohorts must be involuntarily stamped by the forces of history (as the language of impressionable years and generational imprinting suggests), and they must carry that signature mark of history with them as they age. The historical conditions that influence them were created by their elders, but they impact young cohorts differently than older ones because they do not share the same historical experience and memory of what came before. This “fresh contact” that young cohorts make with society can come across as youthful ignorance or obliviousness to the past, due to the biological limitations of their life span: they are incapable of interpreting current experiences in light of earlier ones of which they were too young to have any significant experience or memory.

On the agentic side, young cohorts’ lack of old habits of behavior and interpretation give them the freedom to create new modes of communicating and acting in the world that set them

8 apart as a new generation. In this second essential social dynamic of a generation, young cohorts act somehow in response to the structural shift in order to actualize their distinctive worldviews or to make the generation into a real social force (to create the generation entelechy, in

Mannheim’s terms). Generational agency can take any number of forms and does not necessarily have some essential ingredient common to all of them: even generational identity is not a necessary component of what generation units do, as Mannheim himself observes (p. 309).

Mannheim’s original essay clearly implies that both structure and agency are involved in the emergence of new generations, though he does not put it in those terms. A second wave of generational theorizing also conceptualizes this structure-agency dynamic in various ways. For example, some authors have advocated a Bourdieuian approach to the problem of generation, proposing that concepts of habitus, hexis, doxa, and field be applied to generational analysis

(Eyerman and Turner 1998; Gilleard 2004; Stevenson, Everingham and Robinson 2011). Others have adopted a discursive approach that defines generations as discourses and the cultural groups who articulate them (Aboim and Vasconcelos 2013; Corsten 1999). Still others have conceptualized the agentic side of the generational process in terms of “historical participation” and identity (Alwin and McCammon 2007).

Although the details vary, it is relatively clear that the biological and social dynamics of the life course shape the ways that structure and agency interact to produce generational change.

Since generational imprinting occurs during late adolescence and early adulthood, young generations are not helpless children, nor are they full-blown adults. They are young enough that they do not have longer historical memories or entrenched habits of interpretation, but they are old enough that they are capable of creating new social identities, new lifestyles, and new modes

9 of acting in the world. In this way, the process of generational change is indexed to the dynamics of the life course.

The fact that young cohorts are in such a distinct part of the life course creates a specific structure-agency dynamic that must be both theorized and empirically measured in generational analysis. Below, I characterize this dynamic in terms of two linked mechanisms—combining a structural trigger (what does the imprinting) and an agentic process (how young cohorts create their generational distinction through discourse, practice, and/or identity)—that together constitute the young cohorts’ role in the larger process of generational change. While such a linked structure-agency dynamic is not unique to generations per se, to analyze generational change scientifically requires that both parts of this process be documented and explained.

Generational analysis thus requires the researcher’s divided attention to both halves of the process—we must look at two distinct mechanisms and how they are linked together. In empirical research, this usually requires two different studies of two different things, and if one half of the process is viewed in isolation from the other, young cohorts are easily depicted as either powerless in the face of history or as the source of their own problems.

The third persistent ambiguity within Mannheim’s theory concerns the scope of generational distinction—just how different an emerging generation will be from others. The sheer range of possibilities is the problem. At one extreme, some generations might be distinctive on only a single, small issue but no different on all other issues. This type of generational distinction that is effectively operationalized as a dependent variable is the easiest to establish using empirical research (e.g. Is the 9/11 generation more patriotic than others?). At the other extreme, some generations might be distinctive on a whole range of issues to the extent that a cultural trauma (Alexander et al. 2004) causes a society to change drastically.

10 In theory, the scope of generational change could range from imperceptibly small to all- encompassing, and to my knowledge, there has been no attempt to explore this issue. As the imprint paradigm lends itself well to empirical research, it implies an incremental approach to addressing this issue: if a generational distinction is identified in one domain (e.g. identifying with no religion) we can then determine if the distinction also carries over into other related domains (e.g. attitudes about abortion or gay marriage). This approach is scientifically sound but theoretically underwhelming compared with the ubiquitous potentiality of generational change that is present in every new cohort. Given the demographic inevitability of change via cohort replacement, and given the historical inevitability of change via the constant stream of events that change the world that we can read or hear on the news, it is at least plausible to start from an initial assumption that all generations should exhibit wide scope differences from one another, and if not, to ask why not.

Formulated differently, this ambiguity might be described in terms of a broader question of : to what extent should social change or social continuity over time be assumed, and to what extent should social change or social continuity be the phenomenon to be explained?

In practice, empirical social science appears to have adopted social continuity as the assumption and social change as the phenomenon of interest to be explained. By contrast, generational theory could certainly sustain the opposite point of view. Without addressing the issue directly, we merely leave in place a divided field in which (at best) two different approaches would be taken to address a shared concern.

Linked Mechanisms: Triggers and Processes

11 None of the three conceptual ambiguities just described—the difference between cohort and generation, the dynamics of structure and agency in producing generations, and the scope of generational distinction—are fatal for generational analysis, but combined, they allow for deep disagreements and misunderstandings about generational change to persist, even among those who adopt the imprint paradigm. Moreover, the overlap between some of these possible meanings of the generation and the pulse-rate paradigm’s view of the generation can make the discourses about Millennials or appear plausible.

This paper does not resolve these conceptual ambiguities; rather it proposes that we learn to navigate them theoretically and empirically. We can do this by focusing on the mechanisms that create generations and generational change, rather than on either the groups of people that we call generations or on the specific outcomes of generational change. Although definitions vary widely, mechanisms are generally understood to: mediate between cause and effect; unfold in time; have an identifiable, general structure; and exist on a lower order of complexity than the phenomenon of interest (Gross 2009; Hedstrom and Ylikoski 2010). If there is no consensus on what makes a generation, and if there can be a broad range of generational distinctions and outcomes of generational change, then analyzing the inter-linked processes by which generations and generational change are created is the best way to develop a more thorough, systematic understanding of the generation phenomenon.

To some extent, this approach to the problem of generations is consistent with what has come to be known as analytical sociology (Hedstrom and Bearman 2009), but we must reject its

“structural individualism” because at least one of the essential mechanisms that are required to produce generational change—cohort replacement—is emphatically a macro-level demographic phenomenon (for a critique of "methodological individualisms," see Jepperson and Meyer 2011).

12 That said, this approach does share analytical sociology’s commitment to producing clear, precise explanations of how complex social phenomena work and to expanding social scientific knowledge by showing how the “cogs and wheels” work together.

[Insert Figure 1 about here]

Analyzed in terms of mechanisms, generational change is produced by the interlinked workings of at least four kinds of mechanisms across four different levels of analysis (see Figure

1). In this simplified rendering, comparing society at Time 1 with society at Time 2, generational change can be conceptualized as the sum total of all changes at each of the four levels that are due to the interlinked workings of the mechanisms. Because of the nature of generational change, the levels of analysis are somewhat different than the micro-meso-macro scheme familiar to most sociologists; but an understanding of the social mechanisms working at all four of these levels of analysis is necessary in order to understand the amount and significance of the resulting generational change.

The mechanisms of generational change that have received the most systematic study are cohort replacement and fresh contact. I will say little more about these at this point, since their roles in producing generational change are described in-depth in Mannheim’s theory. For now, it is worth mentioning that cohort replacement is widely studied and modeled from a demographic perspective, without reference to lower levels of analysis; it causes the composition of the population in aggregate to change continuously over time, and it provides the raw demographic potential for generational change. With respect to “fresh contact,” it is most directly operationalized as the “impressionable-years hypothesis,” but it could also be modeled as the creation of the habitus (Bourdieu 1984) to more accurately reflect the embodied nature of our cognition and foundational understandings of the world (Barsalou 2008). I have distinguished the

13 demographic level from the macro level and the embodied-cognitive level from the micro level in part to emphasize the fact that other mechanisms in the macro and micro levels must also be at work to produce generational change.

The two other mechanisms—triggers and social processes—will be discussed in greater detail below because each one refers to a whole class of mechanisms. Although clearly implied in generational theory, the sheer number of possible kinds of triggers and social processes that can contribute to generational change has resulted in substantial incoherence in the literature— the primary problem this paper seeks to remedy. As mentioned above, they must be seen as working together in a way linking structure and agency: the structural trigger (in addition to whatever else it does) causes young cohorts to develop unique understandings and unique social groups, attitudes, and practices in response; these social responses are the agentic process by which the generational change becomes manifest in the world as a generation entelechy.

At the macro level, some form of trigger is required in order to produce generational change; otherwise, even though cohort replacement will continue, society will reproduce itself over time as the young cohort fails to differ in aggregate from those they are replacing. The trigger must exist at the macro level because its effects must be sufficiently widespread in order to produce a new generation; however, the trigger’s effects may be felt at any levels of society.

In other words, the trigger itself may be decomposed into multiple mechanisms that may work at any number of levels. One common form of trigger in the literature on generations is the cultural trauma (Alexander et al. 2004); some analysts actually propose that a cultural trauma is essential to generational change (Eyerman and Turner 1998; Wyatt 1993), or at the very least provides clear temporal boundaries that render them amenable to empirical analysis.

14 Beyond cultural traumas, other triggers that have been analyzed in the literature on generational change include demographic shifts like the Baby Boom (Easterlin 1980; Easterlin,

Wachter and Wachter 1978), changes of policy or political regime (Firebaugh and Chen 1995;

Weil 1987), social movements (Demartini 1985; Jennings 2002; Schneider 1988; Schnittker,

Freese and Powell 2003; Stevenson, Everingham and Robinson 2011), shifts in cultural meaning

(Hart-Brinson 2016; Hout and Fischer 2002; Hout and Fischer 2014), and various types of significant events (Jennings and Zhang 2005; Larson and Lizardo 2007; Schuman and Corning

2000; Schuman and Scott 1989).

These triggers will only produce generational change via the social activity of affected cohorts; a variety of possible social processes involving multiple interacting generation units could be involved in creating the generation entelechy. They could take the form of the expression of different social attitudes, the development of new social norms, the emergence of new social movements or new subcultures, altered patterns of collective memory, new patterns of communication and forms of discourse, and so on. I assume that these social processes will play out both in the micro level of face-to-face interaction and in the meso level operations of groups, organizations, and networks. Much of the ultimate form that the social processes take will depend somewhat on the nature of the trigger (as discussed in the next section), but they will always involve members of the “generation as an actuality” who all experience the trigger but who will respond to it in a variety of ways; the multiple generation units will ultimately be the ones to bring about generational change through their interactions with one another, with older cohorts, and with the organizations and institutions of society.

15 A Catalog of Generational Triggers

In order to gain new conceptual clarity on the problem of generations, a focus on different types of generational triggers is warranted. This is true for three reasons. First, practically speaking, there are far fewer types of structural triggers, compared to the innumerable configurations of social processes that could respond to them. Second, the type of fresh contact and social processes that emerge are likely to depend upon the trigger in such a way that makes it possible to identify empirical regularities of the impact of a given type of trigger. Third, the analysis of specific examples of a given type of trigger can contribute to generalizable knowledge of who becomes a part of a new generation and how generational change happens.

[Insert Table 1 about here]

Table 1 presents a basic catalog of ten types of structural triggers that can be powerful enough, when paired with the mechanism of cohort replacement, to induce fresh contact among young cohorts in their impressionable years and spark a variety of social responses to the trigger among different fractions of the cohort. In addition to examples of each type (either real or hypothetical), the columns of the table present estimates of three regular impacts—the type of fresh contact, its effect on social processes, and the rhythm of change—that are likely to emerge in response to the trigger. The list is intended to be a catalog, not a typology; thus, it is neither comprehensive nor is it intended to be systematic in any way.

Beyond what is stated explicitly in the table, three propositions (which follow from generational theory) should be assumed to apply to all of the triggers. First, there should be relative unity of “fresh contact” among members of a generation, but a plurality of social processes that emerge in response to the fresh contact. This is in keeping with Mannheim’s distinction between the generation as an actuality and the generation units: the shared socio-

16 temporal exposure to the trigger is what defines the unity of the generation, according to

Mannheim; but every generation is made of multiple generation units who are differentiated by their diverse responses to their shared contact. Second, the actual social processes that emerge are expected to include any and all types of micro- and meso-level social behavior that ordinarily comprise the domain of social action—the domain that is often marked as that of sociology (e.g.

Weber 1978). By contrast, what is included in each cell refers to particular aspects or insights about that domain that can be expected to be especially important in the social responses to a trigger. Third, whatever other rhythm of change they may have, they will all be indexed somewhat to the mechanism of cohort replacement. In addition to the changes in social attitudes, behaviors, and orientations that the generation units bring about in response to the trigger, there will be social changes attributable to the amount and pace of cohort replacement that is implicated.

Considering some empirical examples can illustrate how widely generational processes can vary from one another and how much can be learned by analyzing generations in terms of mechanisms. Let’s begin with an example of a demographic shift: the Baby Boom. An example of what some scholars might call a “global generation” (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2009), this demographic increase in birth rates, fertility rates, and marriage rates was experienced in numerous Western nations after World War II to varying degrees of intensity and for various lengths of time (Van Bavel and Reher 2013). In the U.S., the Baby Boom cohort refers to all people born between 1946 and 1964, and it is unique among generation types in that the generation is equivalent with the cohort. In other words, because the generation is defined in purely demographic terms, there are no members of the cohort who are NOT part of the generation. What makes this cohort a generation has less to do with the “fresh contact” that

17 comes from the trigger (one could argue that, in this case, no such fresh contact occurred) and more to do with the effects of the size of the cohort. Easterlin (1980; 1978) shows that the sheer number of people in a cohort can have tremendous impacts on society as they move together through the life course: from school class sizes, to unemployment rates, to marriage and fertility rates later in life, to tax revenues and social program expenditures. Thus, unusually large or unusually small cohorts will be generations to the extent that they set into motion a set of social processes that center on the unique demands that the cohort makes on social institutions. Such generations are likely to express themselves in unique ways politically and economically, and the magnitude of the generational change will depend upon how the political system and economic markets respond to the demands placed on them. The effects will span the life course of such demographically defined generations: the current movement of Baby Boomers into retirement and old age is forecasted to place greater stress on national pension programs and health care systems while also opening new employment opportunities for younger cohorts.

The case of the Baby Boom generation shows how a generation does not necessarily have to be aware of its uniqueness for it to exist; they likely would not have developed a generational identity had not experts told them that they were unique. Indeed, generational identities are rarely straightforward. Collective identities for Generation X and Millennials might exist, not because there is an empirical basis for them (other than that someone wanted to come up with a name for whoever came after the Baby Boomers), but because the label is ascribed to them. In other cases, generations might really exist but without any of their members identifying themselves in generational terms.

This latter possibility appears to be the case for two generations triggered by cultural trends: a generation of religious “none’s” and the same-sex marriage generation. Unlike cultural

18 traumas, whose generations are clearly marked by their coming-of-age experience of a defined historical event, cultural trends can emerge slowly and imperceptibly. Nevertheless, the significance of the generational change may be no less significant, even though it may be felt more gradually; and it may be only after the fact that anyone knows that they were part of a generational shift at all.

In my own research on same-sex marriage in the U.S. (Hart-Brinson 2014; 2016), I show that the increase in support for same-sex marriage was caused in part by generational change.

Not only do the public opinion data show the familiar pattern of cohort and period effects that are the signature of generational change, I show that the difference in how cohorts talk about same-sex marriage can be traced to the changing social imagination of homosexuality. Between

1988 and 1992, the older understanding of homosexuality as an immoral behavior was replaced with a newer understanding of homosexuality as a collective identity in American popular culture. Americans coming of age after 1992 were significantly (and increasingly) more likely to support same-sex marriage than those who came before it. Gradually, over the course of the

1990s and 2000s, a combination of cohort replacement and intra-cohort attitude change caused the level of support to steadily rise, eventually crossing the 50% threshold around 2011.

Throughout most of the controversy, supporters did not identify themselves as part of a generational shift; the actual generational divide existed at the level of implicit understanding, not at the level of explicit debate, such that the two groups simply could not understand the other side’s arguments. Thus, deeply hidden cultural trends like the changing imagination of homosexuality can trigger major generational movements and policy changes without participants necessarily being aware that the shift is generational in nature.

19 This also appears to be the case with the rise of “religious nones.” Hout and Fischer

(2002; 2014) show that generational change is partly responsible for the sharp rise in the increase in the number of Americans identifying with no religion between 1987 and 2012. This overall increase in American atheism was not caused by changes in religious belief per se, but by two fundamental shifts in how young cohorts imagined religion in American society. First, young

Americans came of age seeing religion as political in such a way that drove young liberals and moderates from religion, but not young conservatives. Second, young Americans came of age seeing religion as incompatible with a more libertarian cultural that is supportive of premarital sex, homosexuality, and marijuana use. Because these young cohorts were replacing older cohorts in the population who were far more religious and far more disapproving of such libertarian values, the percentage of Americans identifying with no religion steadily increased and shows no signs of stopping.

Two observations about these two cultural trends—the rise of same-sex marriage and the rise of religious none’s—point to essential insights that can be gained by analyzing generational change in terms of the mechanisms that produce it. First, in principle, for each of these cases, there is a difference between those who are a part of the generation and those who are a part of the cohort. Many Americans who came of age after 1990 (and who are part of these cohorts) did not experience the cultural trend and the changing imaginations of homosexuality and religion, and thus are not part of the generation. In particular, young religious conservatives are much less likely to have been exposed to the libertarian cultural ethos and changing cultural construction of homosexuality (especially if they are immersed in orthodox religious communities) that caused these patterns of generational change. Without exposure to the generational trigger, the fresh contact and social processes generated by them never follow; so they simply are part of the

20 cohort, but not the generation. This is one of the essential insights that can be gained with a mechanism-centered approach to the problem of generations: focusing on the mechanism provides the clearest way to differentiate the generation from the cohort.

Second, the discussion of the mechanisms of these two separate instances of generational change shows that there is a good chance that they are related. Although it has not been demonstrated, it is possible that the rise in support for same-sex marriage was caused by the same factors that caused the rise in Americans identifying with no religion; these might be two different effects of the same generational change. A focus on mechanisms provides a method for thinking through the problem of the scope of generational change. Theoretically, if people experience a generational change in their embodied-cognitive understanding of religion, then all sorts of attitudes, practices, policies, and moral judgments that are associated with religion might also be affected by generational change. By focusing on the four causal mechanisms that create generational change, we may be able to more efficiently and accurately identify who the real generations are and what makes them distinct.

Conclusion

In sum, this paper has advanced a mechanism-centered approach to the problem of generations because of the continuing need for greater conceptual clarity in the sociology of generational change. In terms of mechanisms, generational change is the sum total of the changes caused by four interlinked mechanisms—cohort replacement, fresh contact, structural triggers, and interactional social processes—working together. I have argued that this way of thinking about generations helps us to navigate three enduring dilemmas about generational theory— regarding the distinction between cohort and generation, the dynamics of structure and agency,

21 and the scope of generational distinctions–and in doing so, to provide a stronger, less fractured foundation for future research on generational change.

Sustained attention to generational triggers, in particular, is important because of their macro level structural nature, the unity in “fresh contact” that they can generate among young cohorts, and the diversity of social processes that they can elicit from generation units positioned differently within the cohort. The examples of the two cultural trends (same-sex marriage, religious none’s) and the demographic shift (the Baby Boom) illustrate the kinds of insights that can be gained from this mechanism-centered approach to generational change, and they further underscore the contrast between the imprint paradigm and the pulse-rate paradigm. Not only does the mechanism-centered approach show how the three ambiguities associated with the imprint paradigm are rendered manageable, it also brings into stark relief the fundamental difference between sound generational analysis and the pulse-rate paradigm. For pulse-rate constructs like Millennials and Generation X, there is simply no evidence of a trigger; so even though cohort replacement is ongoing, and even though there are lots of social processes associated with youth activity, in the absence of a meaningful structural trigger and associated fresh contact, there is no generation.

A recognition of the importance of generations and generational change in sociology can be traced all the way back to its first advocate, August Comte, who wrote in 1839 that “the chief phenomenon in sociology… [is] the gradual and continuous influence of generations upon each other” (Comte 1983, p. 256). Mannheim clearly recognized it too. But by the late 20th Century,

American sociology’s interest in generations had become too fragmented to sustain the weight of its fullest theoretical import. The status quo does not have to hold; the enduring dilemmas and ambiguities of the theory do not have to split the discipline; and the non-sense about Millennials

22 that passes for discourse about generations does not have to get a free pass. The analysis of the linked mechanisms that produce generational change provides both a direct challenge and ample opportunities for sociologists to uncover the inner workings of one of the most ubiquitous and powerful forms of social change that exists.

23 Figure 1: Linked Mechanisms of Generational Change

Notes: The double arrows connecting the triggers should be read to signify that all triggers are interconnected with one another, not that only the adjacent two are connected. The temporal and social dynamics of generational change are greatly simplified in this figure; there are temporal dynamics not depicted here, and the ways in which the mechanisms work with one another cannot be fully illustrated here. For example, focusing on the embodied-cognitive level, not only must the mechanism of fresh contact produce a different worldview for Population2 at Time2 (as predicted by the impressionable-years hypothesis), but that worldview should stay the same for

Population2 at Time3 (as predicted by the aging-stability hypothesis). Because my emphasis here is on displaying the levels and mechanisms involved in producing generational change, the figure sacrifices detail for the sake of emphasis. A figure just detailing the relations of the mechanisms to one another would be required to really illustrate how generational change emerges.

24 Table 1: Catalog of Generational Triggers

Trigger Fresh Contact Effect on Social Rhythm of Examples Processes Change Cultural Contracted horizons Coping, Immediate 9/11, World War Traumas of possibility temporarily impact, 1, Great heightened social long-lasting Depression, solidarity effects Kennedy assassination, natural disasters Iconic Expanded horizons Increased social Slow, Moon landing, Achievements of possibility agency, collective gradual first African- pride and American empowerment President Moral Panics Weakened social Repression of Slow, Watergate, trust deviance, gradual crime waves increased boundary work Technological New instrumental Shaped by Dependent Social media, Innovations and communicative commercial on diffusion telephone, affordances markets, rates, hype airplane inequalities of cycle access Aesthetic Diversification of Dynamics of art Tied to fad/ Art movements, Innovations expressive worlds vs. culture fashion new genres like affordances industries, new trajectories, hip hop, The interpretive genre Beatles, Harry communities trajectories Potter Cultural Trends Altered imagination Reconfigured Slow, Support for gay and understandings webs of gradual rights, rise of significance, religious nones group identities and symbolic boundaries, contest over dominant vs. subordinate meanings Demographic Altered collective Oriented to Dependent Baby Boom, Shifts identity political/economic on policy aging population concerns over response problem, resource immigration allocation,

25 employment, welfare Political/Policy Redefinition of New civic Varies Nazi Germany, Changes citizenship practices, women’s relations vis-à-vis enfranchisement state Social Greater or lesser New Tied to Second-wave Movements populist/democratic social/political cycles of feminism, Civil efficacy norms, backlash, protest, Rights altered political dependent Movement opportunity on outcome structure Economic/Policy Changed class New relations of Tied to Globalization, Changes identity and value production, market industrial orientations changes to dynamics decline, rise of education system, and policy “gig economy” consumption changes patterns, post- materialist values Epidemics and Existential Heightened Dependent HIV/AIDS, Ebola Health Crises insecurity scrutiny of on diffusion outbreak medical rate, public institutions, health embodied daily response, practices treatment regime

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