Section 3: Social Change

1
Section 3 Social Change

• How fast society changes depends on how many
  culture traits the society has
• The automobile (aka the car ?)

2

• Sources of social change
• The modern world changes rapidly and there are 6
  factors that stimulate change
• Values and beliefs
• Technology
• Population
• Diffusion
• The physical environment
• War and conquest

3

• Values and Beliefs
• Functionalists stated that society is a system of
  interrelated parts
• When one aspect changes it causes change
  throughout the system
• When values and beliefs are part of a larger
  Ideology this causes major changes

4

• An ideology is a system of beliefs that justifies
  the social, moral, religious, political or
  economic interests held by a group or by society
• These are often part of social movements
• A conscious effort to promote or prevent social
  change

5

• Examples of social movements
• Prohibition
• Womens rights
• The peace movement
• The gay rights movement
• The civil rights movement

6

• Technology
• Finding new ways to manipulate the environment
• Discovery of new ways to use elements of the
  world or understanding them better
• Example atomic fusion, chewing gum and oil
  shale

7

• Population
• A change in the size of the population can bring
  change
• Population increase can effect
• Culture
• The economy
• Creates crowded living conditions
• Simple migrations can cause changes

8

• Diffusion
• The process of spreading culture
• Material culture is adopted more rapidly than
  other aspects of culture
• The process of adapting the borrowed culture
  traits is called reformulation
• Diffusion is a two way process
• The variety of foods we eat are a result of
  diffusion as well as American movies, cars and
  farm machinery is used all over the world

9

• The Physical Environment
• Natural disasters can produce social and cultural
  changes
• Changes in the supplies of natural resources can
  also cause change

10

• War and Conquest
• Not as common as other types of changes
• But they bring about a lot of changes in a short
  period of time

11

• Resistance to change
• Ethnocentrism
• Changes that come from outside a culture meet a
  lot of resistance
• Extreme ethnocentrism can make cultural borrowing
  next to impossible

12

• Cultural lag
• Cultural traits change at different rates
• Technological advances often result in cultural
  lag
• The School year is an example of cultural lag

13

• Vested interest
• People who are satisfied with the way things are,
  are likely to resist changes
• They have a vested interest in keeping their
  security and standard of living consistent