Chapter 17 Social Change and Collective Behavior

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Chapter 17Social Change and Collective Behavior
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Social Change

• New societal behaviors with important long term
  consequences.
• Social change from a historical standpoint has
  occurred in the blink of an eye.
• It is only when we look at it from the
  perspective of the human life span that it
  sometimes seems to be a slow process.

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Predicting Social Change in America-- Tocqueville

1. Major social institutions would continue to
   exist. He did not think that the family,
   religion, or the state would disappear
2. Human nature would remain the same
3. Equality and the trend toward a centralized
   government would continue
4. The availability of material resources (such as
   land, minerals, and rich soils) limits and
   directs social change.
5. Change is affected by the past, but history does
   not strictly dictate the future.
6. There are no social forces aside from human
   actions.

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Social Processes

• Series of steps leading to change on a societal
  level
• Discovery- process where something is learned or
  reinterpreted (explorers, salt)
• Invention- process of creating something new from
  previously existing items or processes (airplane,
  NASA)
• Diffusion- process where one culture or society
  borrows from another (almost always involves
  picking and choosing)

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Technology

• Knowledge and tools used to achieve practical
  goals
• New technology is usually a sign that social
  change will soon follow.
• It took more than a century (100 years) for
  telephones to spread to 94 of homes. In contrast
  in less than 5 years the internet reached over
  25 of Americans.

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Population

• Changing demographics is another important factor
  for creating social change.
• When there are baby booms health care, child
  care, and schools have to be improved
• When the population ages other issues with
  health care and physical care also have to be
  considered.

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The Natural Environment

• Western Expansion
• Destruction of Native American culture
• Great Depression and drought
• Oil demand from other countries led to oil
  embargo of the 1970s.

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Revolution and War

• Revolution- sudden and complete overthrow of a
  social or political order
• Charles Tilly- a revolution results in the
  replacement of one set of power holders by
  another.
• The new social order is many time a compromise
  between the new and old.
• War- organized, armed conflict that occurs within
  a society or between nations.
• Wars promote cultural diffusion, invention, and
  discovery Robert Nisbet

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Theoretical Perspectives on Social Change
Theoretical Perspective Concept Example
Functionalism Equilibrium Continuity in the nature of the presidency despite the scandals in the Nixon and Clinton administrations
Conflict Theory Interest Group Enactment of civil rights laws in the 1960s as a result of the struggle over racial equality
Symbolic Interactionalism Urbanism The smaller proportion of social interaction in a big city vs. a small town is based on a decrease in of shared meanings.
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Functionalist

• Emphasize social stability and continuity
• William Ogburn and Talcott Parsons
• Based on equilibrium a societys tendency to
  react to changes by making small adjustments to
  keep itself in a state of functioning and balance
• A society in change moves from stability to
  temporary instability and back to stability
  dynamic equilibrium

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Conflict Perspective

• Social change is the result of struggling among
  groups for scarce resources change is created as
  these conflicts are resolved.
• Dahrendorf sees conflict among groups at all
  levels of society political, economic,
  religious, racial, ethnic, or gender based.

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Symbolic Interactionism

• Urbanism- the distinctive way of life shared by
  the people living in a city
• Tonnies argues the urbanization creates a very
  different way of life. Social interaction in
  impersonal and fragmented because most people one
  interacts with are strangers who share little
  common tradition.

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Collective Behavior

• Collective behavior- the spontaneous behavior of
  a group of people responding to a similar stimuli
  (rumors, fads, fashions, mass-hysteria, and
  panics)
• Collectivity- collection of people who do not
  normally interact and who do not share clearly
  defined norms
• Dispersed Collectivity- made up of people who are
  not physically connected but who follow common
  rules or respond to common stimuli (tv and
  internet make this common now)
• Problem How do you study a social phenomenon
  that happens spontaneously?

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Role Play

• Get into groups of 4 or so
• Develop a role play illustrating collective
  behavior
• Go! You only have 5 minutes to plan!

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Rumors, Legends, Fads, and Fashions

• Rumor- widely circulated information that hasnt
  been verified for truthfulness
• Urban legend- moralistic tale that focuses on
  current concerns and fears of the city or suburb
  dweller
• Fad- unusual behavior pattern that spreads
  quickly and disappears quickly
• Fashion- widely accepted behavior pattern that
  changes periodically.

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Mass Hysteria and Panics

• Mass hysteria- collective anxiety crated by the
  acceptance of one or more false beliefs (Salem
  witches, AIDS)
• Panic- reaction to a real threat in fearful,
  anxious, and often self damaging ways

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Crowds

1. Casual crowd- least organized, least emotional.
   Gathering after an accident, listen to street
   musician
2. Conventional crowd- specific purpose, accepted
   norms for appropriate behavior little
   interaction (watching a movie)
3. Expressive crowds- no significant long term
   purpose beyond releasing emotion. (Times Square
   New Years Eve)
4. Acting crowd- concentrates intensely on some
   objective and engages in aggressive behavior to
   get it. (protesters, rowdy soccer fans)

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Mobs and Riots

• Mob- emotional crowd ready to use violence for a
  specific purpose
• Riots- episode of largely random destruction and
  violence carried out by a crowd

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Theories of Crowd Behavior

• Contagion theory members of a crowd stimulate
  each other to higher and higher levels of emotion
  and irrational behavior (Le Bon)
• Blumer- crowd goes from milling to collective
  excitement, to finally social contagion

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Theories of Crowd Behavior (continued)

• Emergent Norm Theory- norms develop to guide
  crowd behavior
• Within crowds rules develop.
• Different people are there for different reasons
  so some will be active participants while others
  are passive participants.

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Theories of Crowd Behavior (continued)

• Convergence Theory crowds are formed by people
  who deliberately congregate with like minded
  people.
• believe the independent variable in crowd
  behavior is the desire of people with common
  interests to come together.

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Social Movements

• Large of people
• Common goal to promote or prevent social change
• Structured organization with commonly recognized
  leaders
• Activity sustained over a relatively long time
  period

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Primary types of Social Movements

• Revolutionary movement attempts to change to
  total structure of society
• Reformative movement attempts to make limited
  changes
• Redemptive movement seeks to change people
  completely
• Alternative movement focuses on bringing about
  limited changes in people

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Value Added Theory

1. Structural conduciveness- environment must be
   social-movement friendly
2. Structural strains- conflicts, ambiguities, and
   discrepencies
3. Generalized beliefs- recognition there is a
   problem
4. Precipitating factors- significant events must
   happen to galvanize people into action
5. Mobilization of participants for action
6. Social control- they can stop social movements
   under the right circumstances.

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Resource Mobilization Theory

• Focuses on the use of resources to achieve goals
• Leadership, organizational ability, labor power,
  money, property, equipment