CHAPTER 17
SOCIAL CHANGE AND
COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR
SECTION 1: SOCIAL CHANGE
SECTION 2: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
I CAN…
• 1: …illustrate the three processes that contribute to
social change.
• 2: …Students can explain how technology,
population, natural environment, revolution, and
war cause cultures to change.
• 3: …Compare and contrast theories of crowd
behavior and social movements.
SECTION PREVIEW
• Social change refers to new behaviors that have
long-term and relatively important consequences.
Discovery, invention, and diffusion are the major
social processes through which social change
occurs. Important agents of social change are
technology, population, the natural environment,
revolution, and war.
DEFINING SOCIAL CHANGE
• Social Change – new societal behaviors with
important longer-term consequences
• Can social change be predicted?
• Assumptions made by Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in
America
• Major social institutions would continue to exist
• Human nature would remain the same
• Equality and the trend toward centralized government would
continue
• The availability of material resources limits and directs social
change
• Change is affected by the past, but history does not strictly
dictate the future
• There are no social forces aside from human action.
SOCIAL PROCESSES
• Influence the pace of social change
• Social Processes – series of steps leading to change
on a societal level
• Discovery, Invention, Diffusion
• Forces – factors that may speed up or slow down
social change
• Technology, Population, The Natural Environment,
Revolution and War
DISCOVERY
• Discovery – the process by which something is
learned or reinterpreted
• When the earth was discovered to be round, migration
patterns, trade, and colonization all changed
• Salt first used to flavor food, in some parts of the world it
became currency
• Fire; prehistoric used for cooking/warmth, later to clear
fields, create ash for fertilizer, melt ores to combine into new
metals
INVENTION
• Invention – the creation of something new from
previously existing items or processes
• Pace of social change through invention is closely
tied to how complex the society/culture already is.
• More complex = more change
DIFFUSION
• Diffusion – process by which one culture or society
borrows from another culture or society
• Extent and rate depend on degree of social contact
• More contact, more diffusion
• May involved using only part of a borrowed characteristic
or trait
TECHNOLOGY, POPULATION, NATURAL
ENVIRONMENT
• Technology – knowledge/tools used to achieve
practical goals
• New technology can mean future social change
• Prime promoter for social change
• Population
• Size, age, ethnicity/race, etc.
• Natural Environment
• Natural disasters, control/availability of natural resources
REVOLUTION AND WAR
• Revolution – sudden and complete overthrow of an
existing social or political order
• Usually accompanied with violence
• Most revolutionaries expect revolutions to lead to
change
• Radical changes are rarely permanent bc people tend
to revert to more familiar customs and behaviors
• Following revolutions usually lead to compromise
between new/old.
• War – organized, armed conflict that occurs within a
society or between nations
• War includes diffusion, discovery, and invention
SECTION 2
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
SOCIAL CHANGE
Theoretical
Perspective
Functionalism
Conflict Theory
Symbolic
Interactionism
Explanation
Concepts
Example
FUNCTIONALISM AND SOCIAL
CHANGE
• Equilibrium – a state of functioning and balance,
maintained by a society’s tendency to make small
adjustments to change
• Disruptions will occur, but society will return to a new
equilibriums
• Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, etc.
• Not the same, but a new norm is established
CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE AND SOCIAL
CHANGE
• Change is a result of struggles among groups for
resources
• Marx: “Without conflict, no progress: this is the law which
civilization has followed to present day.”
• Social change comes from a multitude of
competing interest groups – political, economic,
religious, race, ethnic, gender based, etc.
• Society changes as power relationships among interest
groups change.
• Racial groups for equality, environmentalist vs industrialists
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM AND
SOCIAL CHANGE
• When shared interpretations of the world decrease,
social ties weaken and social interaction become
more impersonal
• Example: change from an agricultural econmy to
an industrial one. Accompanied by urbanization
and urbanism –way of life shared by people living in
the city.
CHAPTER 17 SECTION 3,4
• Guided Reading – due by end of period.
• May work with a partner or small groups
• Will be reviewed and discussed at the beginning of next
class period – come prepared to answer questions for
possible Extra Credit Points!