Social Change & Collective Behaviour
Social Change & Collective Behaviour
Social Change
Pre-assessment, Assessment, Post-assessment: These are used to evaluate understanding of the content and track learning progress.
Learning Objectives:
Define social change.
Identify and explain the pace of social change.
Predict how social change occurs.
Pre-Assessment Questions:
Definition of Social Change: How sociologists define social change.
Correct Answer: d) new behaviors that have long-term and important consequences
Major Social Processes: Identifying the major social processes through which social change occurs.
Correct Answer: c) discovery, invention, diffusion
Predicting Social Change: Why it is difficult for sociologists to predict social change.
Correct Answer: d) The variables are conflicting
Influence of Technology: How technology has influenced social change.
Correct Answer: b) telecommunications technology will allow many people to work from home
Cultural Borrowing: Term for the sociological process by which one culture borrows from another culture.
Correct Answer: a) diffusion
Essential Question:
What influences collective behavior?
What factors influence social change?
Collective behavior is influenced by factors such as social norms, crowd size, emotions, and situational context (e.g., crises or events).
Example: During a natural disaster, people may panic and rush to stores to buy supplies.
Social change is influenced by technology, cultural shifts, social movements, economic factors, political developments, and environmental pressures.
Example: The rise of the internet transformed communication, work, and education globally.
Guiding Question:
What is the pace of social change?
The pace of social change can vary—it may be slow or rapid, depending on the context.
Slow change happens over generations, like shifts in cultural values or gender roles.
Rapid change can occur due to revolutions, technological innovations, or major crises like pandemics.
Social change isn't fixed—it can speed up or slow down based on events and societal readiness.
Definition of Social Change:
Social Change is the alteration in a society’s makeup or norms that occurs when many members of a society adopt new behaviors.
Occurs when many members of the society adopt new behaviors.
The role of change is to allow society a means to adapt to new conditions.
The role of change is to develop and advance society.
Social change can be either positive or negative.
The new behaviors people adopt must have long-term and important consequences to be called social change.
Pace of Social Change:
The process of change when calculated in human years is slow.
Predicting Social Change:
It is difficult to predict how a society will change because the course of change in a society depends on the nature of the existing culture.
People in a society can consciously decide for themselves how change will occur.
Globalization and Social Change:
Globalization has made the world smaller by connecting people and places and integrating cultural, economic, and political awareness.
Globalization has produced social change, and the results are both positive and negative.
According to world systems theory, there is an international division of labor in which the more developed (or core) nations concentrate on higher skill manufacturing & less developed (or periphery) nations focus on lower skill manufacturing.
Economics has been a force in globalization that has affected social change.
Increased global trade and new markets have made products more available to more people around the world.
Many Americans have lost their jobs because of this type of outsourcing.
Many young women, age eighteen to twenty-five, who work in textile manufacturing plants in South and Southeast Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka, feel exploited, working long hours for low wages. They are referred to as "Juki girls".
Rumors associated with lax moral behavior of Juki girls have circulated, creating a social stigma against them.
Critical Thinking Questions:
How has globalization affected the economy and caused social change?
Is economic expansion through globalization worth its effects on social change? Explain.
How has globalization affected social norms for many young women in Sri Lanka?
Variations in the Pace of Social Change:
Sociologists have identified several important social processes that influence the pace of social change.
Reading Progress Check:
Social change occurs when many members of the society adopt new behaviors. The behaviors must have long-term and important consequences.
Post-assessment:
Define social change.
What are the major social processes through which social change occurs?
How do sociologists define social change?
Why is it difficult for sociologists to predict social change?
Self-Reflection:
How have technological innovations influenced social movements and social change?
Social Processes
Learning Objectives:
Define Social Processes
Identify and explain the three important social processes
Essential Question:
What influences collective behavior?
What factors influence social change?
Guiding Question:
Why are discovery, invention, and diffusion important social processes?
Social Processes:
A process is a series of steps that lead gradually to a result.
Social Process: a series of steps leading to change on a societal level.
Three important social processes are:
Diffusion
Invention
Discovery
Three Important Social Processes:
Diffusion: When one group borrows something from another group
Invention: The creation of something new from items or processes that already exist
Discovery: Scientific exploration is a path to discovery.
Discovery:
In the discovery process, something is either learned or reinterpreted.
Scientific exploration is a path to discovery. It can bring us to new understandings of the world around us, and beyond.
Examples:
Shape of the earth: When early ocean explorers did not fall off the end of the Earth, they changed what all but a few people believed about its shape.
Salt, another early discovery, was first used to preserve food. Because it was so highly valued, it also came to be used as money in Africa and as a religious offering among early Greeks and Romans.
Fire was used first by prehistoric peoples for warmth and cooking. Later, people discovered that fire could be used to clear fields, to create ash for fertilizer, and to melt ores to combine into new metals.
The work of early astronomers, such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, for example, led to the abandonment of the long-held belief that Earth was the center of the cosmos.
The discovery and application of electricity had profound impacts on society.
It revolutionized the way we communicate with the invention of the telegraph and later the telephone.
It transformed transportation with the development of electric motors, which led to electric vehicles and electric trains.
It revolutionized the way we illuminate our cities and homes with the invention of electric lighting.
It also transformed industries, enabling new manufacturing processes and technologies, such as electric motors powering machinery and tools.
Invention:
Invention is the creation of something new from items or processes that already exist.
Examples of physical inventions: Consider the airplane.
The pace of social change through invention is closely tied to how complex the society or culture already is.
The greater the number of existing items, or elements, the more ways they can be combined into inventions. Thus, the more complex and varied a society, the more rapidly it will change.
NASA was able to reach the moon relatively quickly because the United States had become advanced in such areas as physics, aerodynamics, and the manufacturing of specialized materials.
Critical Thinking Questions:
How does UAE become an advanced country in inventions?
In what way discoveries and inventions will help the UAE to achieve Vision 2030?
Why are discovery and invention important social processes
Diffusion:
When one group borrows something from another group—knowledge, religion, values, foods, styles of architecture, and other cultural traits—change occurs through the process of diffusion.
The extent and rate of diffusion depend on the degree of social contact. The more contact a group has with another group, the more likely it is that objects or ideas will be exchanged.
The Effect of Globalization
Globalization has been an agent of diffusion. Globalization is the development of an increasingly integrated global economy. More broadly, it is a process that also results in increasingly integrated political, cultural, and environmental systems.
Social scientists refer to the process by which less developed nations adopt the characteristics of more developed nations as modernization.
As the world becomes more integrated, individual societies can experience great change that may seem unrelated to the economic forces linking the world.
What’s more, the influence of Western media and the incursion of Western fast food have brought about a change in the way people eat, particularly in rapidly developing societies.
The opening of global markets has brought down the price of food, and the spread of technology has changed the nature of work for many people, making them more sedentary and less active.
globalization has resulted in the rise of obesity throughout the globe.
Reading Progress Check:
Social change occurs when many members of the society adopt new behaviors. The behaviors must have long-term and important consequences.
Re-visit the objectives
Discovery: the process by which something is learned or reinterpreted
Invention: the creation of something new from previously existing items or processes
Diffusion: the process by which one culture or society borrows from another culture or society.
Post-assessment:
A series of steps that lead gradually to a result is called a social process.
The sociological process by which one culture or society borrows from another culture or society is diffusion.
In invention, something new is created from items or processes that already exist. The more complex and varied a society is—that is, the more existing items a society has—the more rapidly it will change.
In the process of discovery, something is either learned or reinterpreted. The result of a discovery can challenge not only people’s beliefs but also the established authority in a society
The work of Galileo and Copernicus led to the abandonment of the long-held belief that Earth was the center of the solar system. This work was an example of the social process identified as discovery.
Self - Reflection
What other forces lead to social change?
Factors Influencing Social Change
Learning Objectives:
Reinforce Social Change and Social Processes
Identify and explain the factors influencing Social Change
Essential Question:
What influences collective behavior?
What factors influence social change?
Guiding Question:
What other forces lead to social change?
Pre-Assessment
Prime Promoter of Social Change: Which factor is considered the prime promoter of social change?
Correct answer: d) technology
Role of Baby Boomers: What part do baby boomers play in social change?
*Correct answer: b) As baby boomers retire, health care and Social Security issues must be addressed.Difference Between War and Revolution: How does war differ from revolution?
Correct answer: d) Wars occur in industrialized nations and revolutions occur in developing nations.
Expectations of Revolutionaries: What do most revolutionaries expect from the revolution?
Correct answer: c) fundamental changes to the social or political order
Positive Influence of War: How has war positively influenced invention and discovery?
Correct answer: d) by promoting and financing new technologies
Factors influencing Social Change:
Technology: The knowledge and tools used to achieve practical goals
Population: Changing demographics (growth, size, composition, distribution, and movement of human populations) create social change
Natural Environment: The environment shapes historical events due to migration, discovery or natural disaster.
War & Revolution: A sudden and complex overthrow of a social or political order
Technology:
Technology is a prime promoter of social change. It includes the knowledge and hardware (tools) that are used to achieve practical goals.
The appearance of new technology in a society is generally a sign that social change will soon follow.
The creation of the silicon chip, which led to the computer revolution, has brought about technological change at an astounding rate.
Telecommunications technology, for example, will allow many to work from their homes, but it will result in far less human interaction.
The Natural Environment:
Interaction with the natural environment has, from the earliest times, transformed human life. The environment continues to shape historical events where some can be natural disasters, such as extreme weather events. Others can be human made.
As a result, Americans began driving smaller, more fuel-efficient automobiles.
Revolution and War
War is organized, armed conflict that occurs within a society or between nations.
A revolution involves the sudden and complete overthrow of an existing social or political order.
Radical changes are rarely permanent because people tend to revert to more familiar customs and behaviors.
Most revolutionaries expect that the revolution will bring about fundamental changes.
War:
Wars also have the power to overthrow ruling leaders and draft new constitution and institute democratic reforms. It also aggravates conflicts between different groups within the country which could result in social instability.
Social change is created through diffusion because wars break down barriers between societies, bringing people from different societies together.
For example, during World War II (1939–1945), the pressure of war enabled the U.S. government to promote and finance the development of such technologies as the atomic bomb, synthetic rubber, and antibiotics. Each contributed to a cultural revolution after the war.
War can bring about social change in many ways.
Mini - Plenary
Why are wars and revolutions considered a factor for social change?
Other than the war or revolution presented by your group state another war you listened to and mention what social change (aspect) did the war bring about.
In terms of technological developments the boom is with CHATBOTs. What kind of social change or social process would you anticipate in society from the speculations you read about AI?
Re-visit the objectives
Technology: The knowledge and tools used to achieve practical goals
Population: Changing demographics (growth, size, composition, distribution, and movement of human populations) create social change
Natural Environment: The environment shapes historical events due to migration, discovery or natural disaster.
War & Revolution: A sudden and complex overthrow of a social or political order
Post-assessment:
*Technology is a prime promoter of social change - TRUE
Demographers study the growth, size, composition, distribution, and movement of human populations - TRUE
A natural disaster can instigate social change - TRUE
A revolution is always accompanied by violence - FALSE
A post-revolutionary society is eventually never replaces the original version of the society - FALSE
War aggravates conflicts between different groups within the country - TRUE
End of chapter questions:
Defining: What is discovery?
Explaining How does revolution differ from war?
Explaining Explain how social change occurs.
Describing What is the pace of social change?
Drawing Conclusions Why are discovery, invention, and diffusion important social processes?
Identifying What other forces lead to social change?
Understanding historical interpretation: Is it easy or difficult to predict how a society will change?