WILLAM OGBURN “THEORY OF

CULTURAL CHANGE”

OGBURN STUDIED THE

PHENOMENON OF CHANGE IN
THE SOCIETY

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 CHANGE

Continuous
phenomenon

Cultural
An irresistible
transmission
phenomenon
not same

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 SOCIAL CHANGE

• Boss--------
Change in the Husband/wife
social structure and • Friends------
in the social Husband/Wife
relationships of the • Neighbourhood
society changes-----
Urbanization

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 CULTURAL CHANGES

• Popularization of the
Changes automobiles and cell
in the phones in the society
culture of • New form of art and
the society music in the society
• Sex Equality

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 PROCESS OF CHANGE
• DISCOVERY:
“A shared human perception of an aspect of
reality which already exists”
e.g. Principle of lever, human anatomy
An addition to the world’s store of verified
knowledge
Something new to the cultural base
A factor in Social change when put into use
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• INVENTION:
 A new combination or new use of the existing
knowledge
e.g. Automobiles,
 Material Inventions Guns, Cars, Cell Phones
 Social Inventions Constitutions, Corporations
 Not strictly an individual matter, it is a social
process involving an endless series of
modifications and improvements. Herein lays the
difference between Discovery and innovation

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• Invention may be new in
FORM: Shape
FUNCTION: What Invention does
MEANING: Long range consequence of its
use

Motor cycle, Car and Jet. Different form with

same function but with different meaning

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• DIFFUSION:
– “The spread of cultural traits from group to group”

– Most inventive societies have modest population of

its own inventions

– Therefore most of the cultural development is

through the process of diffusion

– Within societies, Between societies

– Whenever societies come in contact

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• A two way process

• Societies with simpler technology, more

borrowing

• Within society, traditionally low status groups

borrow more, however reverse diffusion also
takes place

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• A SELECTIVE PROCESS:

o Indian Customs but not Indian food

o Chinese food but not Chinese communism and

Chinese way of eating

o During diffusion anything can be accepted or

rejected.

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FACTORS IN THE RATE OF CHANGE

• PHYSICAL ENVOIRNMENT:

i. Changes are rare, but aggressive when

happens
ii. Civilization, mass media, Education all made
it easy to transport a culture and practice it in
a new land

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• POPULATION CHANGE:

Itself is a social change

A casual factor in further social and cultural change

Tribal and Frontier Population----Urban pattern

Secondary groups and Institutions grow

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• ISOLATION AND CONTACT:

– World Cross roads

– Centre for change

– Societies in closest contact with other societies

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• SOCIAL STRUCTURE:

 General modernity syndrome

 Authority of the old people

 Conservative society

 Integrated and Interwoven society

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• ATTITUDES AND VALUES:

o Western Societies are progressive, they anticipate change

o People who worship their past are resistant to change

o Preoccupied with rituals and traditions

o Ethnocentric

o Rapidly changing societies are highly receptive to change

o Experiment and Innovations

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• Highly receptive to the change of one type and
resistant to change to other kinds

• Mosque Architecture/ Religious doctrines

• American fast food/ War against terror

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• PERCEIVED NEEDS:
• Many inventions and discoveries were there
but they came into use when society
discovered the need for them
• Changing conditions give birth to new needs,
Motorways
• Failure to recognize a need, Unpleasant
consequences
• Death control not accompanied by Birth
control Population Explosion
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• THE CULTURAL BASE:
– Accumulation of knowledge and technique
available to the inventor

• CROSS FERTILIZATION:
– Discoveries and inventions in one field become
useful in entirely different fields
– Vacuum Tube is used in radio and computers,
similarly radio active material is used in bombs
and medical treatment

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• THE EXPONENTIAL PRINCIPLE:

– A+B = AB

– A+B+C = AB, AC, BC, ABC,

– A+B+C+D = AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD, ABC,

ABD, BCD,

– Greater the knowledge base, greater the inventions

are
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DEMONSTRABILITY OF INVENTIONS
AND COMPATABILITY WITH CULTURE
1- The innovation may come in conflict with the
existing culture

May be rejected (Western Dress, Nudity,

Communism)

May be accepted with modifications (Chinese

food)
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• May come in conflict with the existing culture, however
the conflict may be concealed with rationalization (Use
of loud speakers, old homes, day cares)
• Sometimes innovation may call for new patterns in the
existing culture not present in the prevalent culture (Old
homes, replacement of print media by electronic media)
• Some innovations are substitutive not additive, therefore
they are less readily acceptable. (Music, movies and
food are additive so easily acceptable. Sex equality and
divorce is substitutive so not easily acceptable)

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 COST OF CHANGE
• Technical difficulties

• Vested interests

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 ROLE OF CHANGE AGENT
• Who proposes a change
• Testimony
• Foreign Aids (US proposed cultural changes
are difficult to implement, UAE, KSA
proposed changes are more acceptable)
• Change agents in many cases are initially
considered as deviants

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 THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHANGE

• Ogburn distinguished three forms of the social

effect of an invention
• 1- DISPERSION OR MULTIPLE EFFECTS OF A
SINGLE MECHANICAL INVENTION
• Automobiles
Motorways, Industries, Services Sector, CNG
stations, Petrol stations, Market for steel,
leather, iron, etc.

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• SUCCESSION OR DERIVATIVE EFFECT OF A
SINGLE INVENTION
• Cotton Gin
More Cotton production
More Employment
More profitability
More textile industry
Textile legislation
Trade bodies

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• CONVERGENCE:

– Coming together of several influences of the

different inventions

– Automobiles, motorways, electricity, mobile

phones, internets all made the life at farm houses
possible

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 UNEQUAL RATES OF CHANGE

• Culture is interrelated
• Change in one aspect of culture demands a change
in other aspects of the culture
• The time interval between the arrival of the change
and the completion of the adaptation of the change
by the culture is known as CULTRAL LAG
• Concept was introduced by Ogburn
• An aspect of the culture lag behinds to another
aspect of the culture to which it is related
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 MATERIAL CULTURE-MATERIAL
CULTURE LAG
• Mechanized Agriculture
• More crops
• Less storage capacity
• Food rotten in the fields

• (Mobile phones and wrist watches)

• (Print and electronic media)
• (Black/White Boards and multi media)
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MATERIAL-NON MATERIAL CULTURAL
LAG
• Traditional class room
• Fixed and immobile furniture
• Research has shown, flexible furniture, more
interactive lectures
• Material culture Class room, Non material
culture education
• Organ transplantation
• Contraceptives
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 NON MATERIAL CULTURE-NON MATERIAL
CULTURE LAG

• Death rate controlled

• Birth rates high
• Population explosion
The concept of cultural lag is applied different
rate of change in the same society not in
different societies
It is a characteristic of a rapidly changing society
Not the symptom of backward society

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