QUESTIONS ABOUT SOCIAL CHANGE

1. QUESTIONS ABOUT SOCIAL CHANGE

2. WHAT SORTS OF QUESTIONS COULD YOU ASK ABOUT CHANGES IN CANADIAN SOCIETY? • Consider these: • Which area of Canadian life has changed the most? • What factors caused these changes? • Have the changes, on the whole, been beneficial or detrimental? IN GROUPS OF THREEDISCUSS THE CHANGES THAT WILL TAKE PLACE BY THE TIME YOU ARE 80 YEARS OLD.

3. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUESTIONS • Anthropologist regard culture as constantly changing organism (an organism is a whole with interdependent parts). • The change processes is normally gradual, and cultures do not change suddenly and completely. Except when they are destroyed by another culture.

4. WITH THIS FRAME OF QUESTIONS IN MIND ANTHROPOLOGISTS MAY ASK THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: • What are the known basic mechanisms of social change? • What ideas or explanations can we use to describe what causes cultures to change? • How adequate are these ideas or explanations when we apply them to the modern world? • What are the implications for anthropologists? Are the findings for one period valid in another?

5. ANTHROPOLIGISTS TEND TO SEE CULTURAL CHANGE AS BEING CAUSED BY A LIMITED NUMBER OF FACTORS: • Change in societies leadership • Shift in values and norms • Technological change • Changes to the environment

6. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL QUESTIONS • Psychologists focus on people’s behaviour in their investigation of social change. • For example, they may consider the social problems of drug use or drinking and driving. • Psychologists would ask the following questions: • What must people do to successfully change their behaviours? • What factors make behaviour modification programs successful? • Do most people need help changing behaviour, or can they be self-changers?

7. HOW AND WHY DO WE CHANGE OUR MINDS? • Social psychologists have discovered that most individuals desire cognitive consistency. • The desire to avoid attitudes that conflict with each other, which generally results in the ability to live more satisfying lives. • We tend to change our attitudes when we experience discomfort when two attitudes lead to conflict. • Hence, in order to regain cognitive consistency we are forced to change one of the two conflicting attitudes.

8. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY: • The theory that people try to avoid conflicts between what they think and what they do. FOR EXAMPLE: Suppose you smoke, but you also believe that smoking causes cancer and other serious diseases. • You are experiencing dissonance (conflict). • In order to regain cognitive consistency you will try to avoid facing the conflict.

9. SOCIOLOGICAL QUESTIONS • Sociologists focus on the massive shifts in the behaviours and attitudes of groups and society as a whole. • See change as inevitable process. Major issue, is social change patterned and predictable, or arbitrary and irregular. • The major question for sociologists is, how does social change come about?

10. EARLY APPROACHES: • In its early development as a discipline, Sociology developed three main ways of explaining social change. 1) From decay: caused by decline or degradation. All societies began in an ideal state. As society became more materialistic, and less spiritual they declined. 2)From cycles of growth and decay: believed that societies go through cycles of growth and decay. 3) From progress: social change occurs as a result of the phenomenon of continuous progress. Each new society builds on the experiences of its predecessors, as a result social institutions change.

11. ANALYZING PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOUR • Sociologists believe that human behaviour is generally patterned and potentially predictable. • People tend to behave according to societal norms (customary types of behaviour). • Therefore, the extent that society will accept social change should also be predictable.

12. Sociologists tend to look at one or more of four aspects of social change: 1) Direction of change: Is it positive or negative, and who says so? Sociologists consider it vital to consider whose opinions are being sought in the measurement of change. 2) Rate of Change: Is the degree of change slow, moderate, or fast? What factors are affecting the rate? After identifying the forces that facilitate and oppose change, sociologists try to estimate which side has the greater influence both now and in the future.

13. 3) Sources: What factors are behind the influences of change in society? Are they exogenous influences, coming from another society, or endogenous influences, coming from within society. For ex., population, technological innovation, condition of environment. All these influence the norms and values of a society. Changes to any of these will result in social change. 4) Controlability: Many sociologists are interested in the degree to which social change can be controlled or engineered. For ex., to what degree is it possible to engineer or restrict social change in a diverse society of Canada at large?

14. PAUSE AND REFLECT QUESTIONS • How do Anthropologists regard cultures? What causes cultures to change? • What do Psychologists studying change concentrate on? How can change be obtained? • What is the focus of sociologists studying social change? • Create a comparison organizer, and list and compare the questions asked by experts from the three disciplines.