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Critical junctures and incremental change. An important new issue in the study of change is the relative role of critical junctures and incremental change. On the one hand, the two kinds of change are sometimes starkly counterposed.
Manifest functions are the consequences that people see, observe or even expect. It is explicitly stated and understood by the participants in the relevant action. The manifest function of a rain dance, used as an example by Merton in his 1957 Social Theory and Social Structure, is to produce rain, and this outcome is intended and desired by people participating in the ritual.
On the other hand, discontinuous development involves distinct and separate stages, with different kinds of behavior occurring in each stage. [ 3 ] [ page needed ] Stage theories of development rest on the assumption that development is a discontinuous process involving distinct stages which are characterized by qualitative differences in behavior.
Smelser porter considered social movements to be the side-effects of rapid social change. [2] He argued that six things were necessary and sufficient for collective behavior to emerge, [1] and that social movements must evolve through the following relevant stages: [2] [3]
In sociology, social psychology (also known as sociological social psychology) studies the relationship between the individual and society. [1] [2] Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field of psychology, sociological social psychology places relatively more emphasis on the influence of social structure and culture on individual outcomes, such as ...
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. [1] Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables ...
Pure sociology is a theoretical paradigm, developed by Donald Black, that explains variation in social life through social geometry, meaning through locations in social space. A recent extension of this idea is that fluctuations in social space—i.e., social time —are the cause of social conflict.
Social cycle theories are among the earliest social theories in sociology.Unlike the theory of social evolutionism, which views the evolution of society and human history as progressing in some new, unique direction(s), sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society and history generally repeat themselves in cycles.