Cultural Change in Contemporary Chile

Recent studies suggest that cultural change can be explained by two broad models. The settled dispositions model posits that people’s dispositions remain stable over the life course, whereas the active updating model argues that dispositions are updated in response to new events. Generally, existing studies have adopted one of these explanatory models without systematically evaluating or contrasting them, which is problematic since both processes may account for change. In this context, Kiley and Vaisey (2020) analyzed panel data from the USA, finding that most individual-level changes in attitudes reflect non-persistent change, highlighting the significance of generational replacement. Conversely, using data from several countries, Lersch (2023) and Tormos (2021) present evidence supporting the active updating model. A persistent gap in this literature is that most panel data evidence of individuals' changes comes from just a few countries, mainly Britain, Germany and the USA. High-quality panel data for studying changes in personal culture are scarce in the Global South.

This study addresses that gap by examining changes in personal culture in Chile. We analyze six waves of the Social Longitudinal Study of Chile (ELSOC)—a representative panel of residents in Chile—to assess whether patterns of personal cultural change are better explained by the active updating model or the settled dispositions model. The findings suggest that most attitude dynamics align with the settled dispositions model, leaving little room for life-course changes to drive social change. These results are consistent with existing research and provide insight into the external validity of previous findings. We also explore the role of social heterogeneity in explaining these results, particularly the importance of socioeconomic status.