While more than eight out of ten adults in eight countries feel it is "very" or "somewhat" important for them to be involved in positive social change efforts, more people believe it is important to contribute to long-term change than it is to contribute to immediate change, a survey commissioned by Walden University finds.

Based on a survey of more than nine thousand adults in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Jordan, Mexico, and the United States, the 2014 Social Change Impact Report (12 pages, PDF) found that among respondents who have engaged in efforts to create social change, 73 percent said it is "extremely" or "very" important that a person's engagement leads to long-term benefits, while 61 percent said the same about changes that improve people's lives today. On average, 58 percent said they expected their own activities to lead to long-term improvements, while 46 percent expected them to contribute to immediate change. Respondents in Brazil were the most likely to expect to make both a long-term (81 percent) and short-term (72 percent) impact.

According to the report, about half the respondents felt they were making a "major" or "moderate" impact on improving the lives of individuals in their community (53 percent) and on creating a better world for everyone to live in (49 percent), while a smaller percentage felt they were making a difference in terms of changing social structures and systems (40 percent). The survey also found that while 82 percent of respondents had engaged in positive social change over the past six months, those who do so frequently were more likely to say they were making a "major" or "moderate" impact. For instance, those who engage in social change at least once a month were more likely to report that they were improving the lives of people in their community (66 percent), creating a better world for everyone to live in (59 percent), and changing social structures and systems (48 percent) than those who engage less often.

At the same time, the survey found that only 25 percent of respondents said that they were "extremely" or "very" satisfied with how much people in their country were involved in social change activities, that 29 percent were not at all satisfied, and that 36 percent said they were extremely or very satisfied with the availability of opportunities to be involved in creating positive social change.

"The 2014 Social Change Impact Report provides insight as to where social change agents believe they are having the most impact and how that varies with different levels of engagement in positive social change," said Cynthia Baum, president of Walden University, an online institution that is focused on training scholar-practitioners to effect positive social change. "This year's findings tell us that engagement in social change is highly valued, but that the majority of us feel that we — and others — could be doing more to create an enduring impact."