...Derek Richardson; Keera Allendorf This paper examines endorsement of developmental idealism (DI) about marriage in the United States, as well as differences in such endorsement by demographic characteristics. It is the first study to assess whether Americans relate changes in marriage to societal...

... are viewed through the lens of developmental idealism. We also describe how the developmental idealism framework applies to Western contexts generally and the United States specifically. We trace family attitudes from the 1960s through 2018 using four data sources: the Intergenerational Panel Study...

...Rukmalie Jayakody Developmental idealism is a powerful cultural model specifying what development is, describing how it can be achieved, and framing it as desirable and good. Television is a key mechanism hypothesized to spread developmental idealism messages to remote areas that have previously...

...Keera Allendorf; Arland Thornton In this introduction, we offer an overview of developmental idealism (DI) theory and the contributions of this special issue. DI is a collection of values and beliefs about socioeconomic development and its causal links to other elements of societies. Within DI...

...Susan Cotts Watkins; Dennis Hodgson The spread of developmental idealism's beliefs about how “modern” family practices help achieve a modern prosperous society did not happen spontaneously, especially in societies whose family systems bore little initial resemblance to the “modern” ideal. We...

...Arjan Gjonça; Arland Thornton In this paper we use data from a nationally representative survey conducted in Albania in 2005 to study the spread of the worldviews, values, and beliefs of developmental idealism in the country. We find that Albanians have adopted developmental idealism, with ideas...

...Arland Thornton; Dirgha Ghimire; Linda Young-DeMarco; Prem Bhandari This paper examines the reliability and stability of developmental idealism (DI) measures in Nepal. DI is a set of cultural schemas that contains beliefs and values favoring modern societies and families over traditional ones...

...Shawn F. Dorius; Jeffrey Swindle Scholarship on developmental idealism demonstrates that ordinary people around the world tend to perceive the level of development and the specific characteristics of different countries similarly. We build on this literature by examining public perceptions...

.... Developmental idealism is a cultural model—a set of beliefs and values—that identifies the appropriate goals of development and the ends for achieving these goals. It includes beliefs about positive cause-and-effect relationships among such factors as economic growth, educational achievement, health...

.... Developmental idealism is a cultural model—a set of beliefs and values—that identifies the appropriate goals of development and the ends for achieving these goals. It includes beliefs about positive cause-and-effect relationships among such factors as economic growth, educational achievement, health...