Does inner work drive social change?
An in-depth look at the field of personal transformation to understand its linkages to social transformation.
Literature Review of the Scientific and Scholarly Literature on Personal Transformation and its Relationship to Social Change
Global Grassroots conducted a review of scientific and scholarly research on the topic of personal transformation as it relates to societal transformation. We reviewed more than 370 key academic and scientific articles across the following five themes.
Photo Credit: Laya Greyson
Measuring Personal Transformation in Organizations Working for Social Change: A Survey of Organizations, Change Agents, and Philanthropists
Global Grassroots undertook a survey of 58 actors across the global social impact sphere to try to understand current thinking on the nature of the relationship between personal transformation and social transformation and any common practices used in its evaluation.
Proposed Conceptual Model for the Interrelationships of Personal Transformation, Prosocial Behavior and Social Change
We offer this conceptual model to explain the interrelationships between these five domains of personal transformation and how they work together to catalyze prosocial behavior and, thus, social change. The primary drivers of this model are mindfulness and social and emotional intelligence, which work through a five-part pathway to influence prosocial outcomes, and then potentially social change:
I. Self-Awareness and Self-Knowledge
II. Self-Regulation and Self-Management
III. Understanding Others
IV. Connecting with Others
V. Prosocial Behavior and Orientation
VI. Social Change
Partners & Contributors
The lead on this study, Global Grassroots, is an international organization with the mission to catalyze women and girls as leaders of conscious social change within their communities. We believe that social change is most transformative and sustainable when led from within.
This exploration was made possible by the following partners and contributors. We extend our deep gratitude for their partnership and support. We also express our gratitude to those experts who provided their informal peer review and advisory support on our process and findings.
Click on our partner’s logos below to learn more.
Contact Global Grassroots at WisdomLab@globalgrassroots.org to learn more.