Explanation of social change must be sought in culture change rather than in the biological nature of man.
Reason
- Little biological evolution in human race in last few 1000 yrs.
- Much social evolution.
4 Factors Explaining Cultural Evolution
- Invention;
- Accumulation;
- Diffusion;
- Adjustment
A) Invention
Inventions result from operations of 3 further factors
• Mental ability
• Mental ability
- Individuals with the needed mental abilities have appeared in all societies.
- But, the larger the population, the more such individuals there will be
• Demand
- Contributes to making of inventions.
- Determines whether an invention, once made, will be used
• Existence of cultural elements
- The more cultural elements there are, the easier it is to produce new inventions by combining several existing ones
B) Accumulation
- Occurs when more new elements, that is, inventions, are added to the cultural base than are lost by obsolescence.
- The larger the accumulation is, the easier it is to make new inventions.
C) Diffusion
- Spread of an invention from one area to another. Given means of communication, an invention made in one place are travel widely.
- Eg. nations living at communications crosswords may make enormous progress simply by receiving a wide variety of inventions from various sources
D) Adjustment
- Each time an invention is made, some social change has occurred that requires adjustment.
- An invention in one part of a culture may create an adjustment in a related part of the culture.
- The adjustments do not occur instantaneously, but are made after a delay, and are called ‘cultural lags’.
According to Ogburn…
- A common pattern of social change in the 20th century is for a technological advance to affect an economic organization.
- This in turn causes a change in a social institution such as the family or govt.
- Finally causes a change in the social philosophy of a people.
- Invention is not the unique cause of all social change (as noted previously) there must be a demand of an invention or it won’t be used.
- Such demand may precede or follow the invention.