Cultural Conformity and Adaptation Social Change

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Cultural Conformity and AdaptationSocial Change

• Chapter 3, section 3
• Pgs. 54-61

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Social Change

• All cultures change over time.
• The rate of change can also accelerate because
  each change brings about other changes.
• There are many factors that stimulate change
  values, beliefs, technology, population,
  diffusion, the physical environment, and wars and
  conquests.

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Values and Beliefs

• Society is a system of interrelated parts so a
  change in one aspect of society produces changes
  throughout the system.

• Ideology is a system of beliefs or ideas that
  justifies the social, moral, religious,
  political, or economic interests held by a group
  or by society.

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Values and Beliefs

• Ideologies often are spread through social
  movements.
• A social movement is a long term conscious effort
  to promote or prevent social change.

• Social Movements usually involve large numbers of
  people
• Social Movements include
• Prohibition movement
• Womens rights
• Peace movement
• Civil rights movement

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Civil Rights Movement

• As recently as the 1950s African Americans were
  forced to live as second-class citizens,
  particularly through the south.
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed various
  methods that had been used to deny African
  Americans the vote.

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Technology

• Social Change also occurs when people find new
  ways to manipulate their environment.
• Technology the knowledge and tools that people
  use to manipulate their environment.

• Two ways that new Technologies arise are through
• Discovery
• Invention
• What is the difference?

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Technology

• Discovery
• Discovery occurs when people recognize new uses
  for existing elements in the world or begin to
  understand them in new ways.
• Chewing gum, oil shale, and atomic fusion.

• Invention
• Invention occurs when people use existing
  knowledge to create something that did not
  previously exist.
• Material invention computers small enough to
  hold in your hand
• Non-material invention new hobbies

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Population

• A change in the size of the population may bring
  about change in the culture.
• The arrival of new groups of people with their
  own unique cultural traits and value has
  influenced American culture.
• Social and cultural change can result from
  changes in the average age of the population.
  When fewer people are having babies, there is
  less need for schools, recreation centers, etc.
  More need for specialized services geared toward
  elderly people.

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Diffusion

• People often borrow ideas, beliefs, and material
  objects from other societies.
• Diffusion the process of spreading culture
  traits from one society to another.
• The more contact a society has with other
  societies, the more cultures traits it will
  borrow.

• Some culture traits spread more rapidly then
  others.
• Societies adopt material cultures and technology
  more freely then ideas and beliefs.
• Tools vs. religion

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Diffusion

• Sociologists refer to this process of adapting
  borrowed cultural traits as reformulation.
• Diffusion is a two way process.
• As a result of contact with other cultures

• Americans eat foods such as pasta from Italy or
  sushi from Japan.
• Also American movies, music, cars, and soft
  drinks can be found in countries throughout the
  world.

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The Physical Environment

• The introduction of new foods or the scarcity of
  a familiar food can bring about cultural change.
• A change in the supply of natural resources may
  bring about cultural change.

• 1970s high gas prices
• Extreme prices
• Long gas lines
• American sought alternative sources of energy and
  develop smaller, more efficient cares.
• This movement slowed in the 1980s because fuel
  shortages eased.
• The production of large and less efficient cars
  increased again.

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Wars and Conquest

• Wars and conquests are not as common as other
  social changes.
• They do bring about the biggest changes though in
  the least amount of time.

• Wars and Conquests cause
• Loss of life
• Destruction of property that need to be rebuilt
• Changes in the economy as industry focused on war
  production.
• Changes in government such as ruler, laws, and
  new political policies and rights.

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Resistance to Change

• Cultural change rarely occurs without some
  opposition.
• For each change you have several groups
• Those who strongly oppose it, those who accept it
  after time and people who will never accept it,
  but learn to adapt to it.
• Ethnocentrism, cultural lag, and vested interest
  are among the reasons that people resist change.

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Ethnocentrism

• Change that comes from outside a society is meant
  with particular resistance.
• People tend to believe that their own ideas and
  ways of doing things are best.

• Extreme ethnocentrism can make cultural borrowing
  difficult or even impossible.

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Cultural Lag

• Some traits change rapidly and the transformation
  of others may take considerable time this is
  known as cultural lag.
• Can you think of examples?

• Computers and the internet have led to a cultural
  lag. These two offer education opportunities,
  but because of cost and other factors some
  districts have yet to put this technology to
  effective use in the classroom.

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Vested Interest

• A person who is satisfied with the way things are
  now is likely to resist change.
• They will resist any change that threatens their
  security or standard of living.

• In other words they have a vested interest.
• In 1992 the Energy Policy Act was passed by
  George Bush to stop rising gas prices. But the
  new policy did not focus enough on conservation
  or on the use of renewable fuels.

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Vested Interest

• One reason it was difficult to implement energy
  policies to permanently solve the energy problems
  was that many people in the oil industry
  benefited from the high prices of oil products.
• To protect their vested interest oil companies
  and workers in the industry have lobbied the
  government to protect their interest.
• Ex. Campaign contributions