Perspective | Special Issue: Psychology of Pushback

Beyond progress vs. regress: Societal change as dynamic social evolution

Colin Wayne Leach

, Shaunette T. Ferguson

, & Betselot Biruck Wondimu

https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00073
Published: November 4, 2026
Copyright: The authors (CC BY 4.0)

Leach, C.W., Ferguson, S.T., & Wondimu, B.B. (2026). Beyond progress vs. regress: Societal change as dynamic social evolution. advances.in/psychology, 1, e648338. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00073

Leach, Colin Wayne, et al. "Beyond progress vs. regress: Societal change as dynamic social evolution." advances.in/psychology, vol. 1, no. 1, 2026, e648338. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00073.

Leach, Colin Wayne, Shaunette T. Ferguson, and Betselot Biruck Wondimu. 2026. "Beyond progress vs. regress: Societal change as dynamic social evolution." advances.in/psychology 1 (1): e648338. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00073.

Leach CW, Ferguson ST, Wondimu BB. Beyond progress vs. regress: Societal change as dynamic social evolution. advances.in/psychology. 2026;1(1):e648338. doi:10.56296/aip00073.

Leach, C.W. et al. (2026) 'Beyond progress vs. regress: Societal change as dynamic social evolution', advances.in/psychology, 1(1), e648338. Available at: https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00073.

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Many scholars view modern rights and opportunities as in danger of being reversed by fascist, authoritarian, ethno-nationalist, and other traditionalist political movements. Thus, the present historical moment is described as a regressive counter-movement against previous progress (i.e., political pushback, democratic decline or backsliding). How societal change appears, however, is affected by chosen time frames, imputed trajectories, and preferred directions. Thus, we offer an alternative view of societal change as the continual dynamic evolution of a system of (political, cultural, social, linguistic, economic, psychological) systems. In a second section after an introductory overview, we explain the limitations of conceptualizing societal change as discrete epochs of linear regress or progress, using as illustrations authoritarianism and racism as well as political polarization into “echo chambers.” In a third section, we sketch an over-arching meta-theoretical framework for understanding societal change, in part by discussing dynamic social evolution in terms of relative time and constant motion. In a fourth section, we briefly discuss the most appropriate methods of study. We conclude with an invitation to use the dynamic evolution of systems to examine a variety of societal changes of interest to psychologists.

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