In psychology and sociology, social inertia or cultural inertia is the resistance to change or the permanence of stable relationships possibly outdated in societies or social groups. Social inertia is the opposite of social change.
The idea of social inertia can be traced back to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. According to Bourdieu, each person occupies a position in a social space, which consists of his or her social class as well as social relationships and social networks. Through the individual's engagement in the social space, he or she develops a set of behaviors, lifestyle and habits (which Bourdieu referred to as habitus) which often serve to maintain the status quo. Thus, people are encouraged to "accept the social world as it is, to take it for granted, rather than to rebel against it, to counterpose to it different, even antagonistic, possibles." [1] This can explain the continuity of the social order through time.
Sociologists have examined how economic and cultural heritage is transmitted across generations, which can lead to strong social inertia even during times of social progress. In particular, Bourdieu found in his studies of Algeria that even during times of rapid economic change, cultural and symbolic factors limited the flexibility of the society to quickly adapt to change. [2]
Therefore, social inertia has been used to explain how dominant social classes maintain their status and privilege over time. Currently, this is a hotly debated topic in the United States. While President Barack Obama reaffirmed America's commitment to equal opportunity in his second inaugural address, Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz believes it is a myth that modern society offers equal opportunity and high social mobility through mechanisms such as formal education. [3]
Example of social inertia in the culture of the United States is the culture of honor which exists in parts of the South and West. In the culture of honor, violence is seen as an acceptable way of responding to insults or threats to a person's self, family, property, or reputation. Some psychologists and historians believe that the culture of honor arose as a way of enforcing order on the frontier, when the South and West were first being settled and there was inadequate law enforcement and little social order. [4] According to this hypothesis, herding (which is a solitary activity) should be more closely tied to the culture of honor than farming (which is a cooperative activity). However, some scholars have not found support for this. When researchers examined the relationship between agricultural practices in the rural South and the white male homicide rates in those areas, they did not find that homicide rates were higher in counties that were hilly and arid and therefore more suitable for herding vs. farming. They concluded that homicide rates did not support the herding vs. farming hypothesis for the culture of honor. [5] Therefore, religion and poverty have been offered as alternative explanations for the origins of the culture of honor. [6]
Even though the economic and social circumstances of the South and West have since changed, the culture of honor persists due to social inertia. It has become a social norm in southern and western culture, and these norms persist even when economies change. [7]
In a 2013 journal article in the Journal of Sociology , sociologist Scott Brook applied the theory of social inertia to the field of creative labor. Specifically, Brook was concerned with why so many students would continue to seek degrees in creative fields (such as the arts and creative writing), even when the oversupply of labor meant that many students were unable to find employment in those fields after graduation. Even if they were able to find employment, they earned less than their peers with non-creative degrees. [8] Scott used Bourdieu's notion of social inertia to suggest that students who were drawn to the non-commercial nature of creative fields came from families with low socioeconomic status and whose parents had not been able to develop a career themselves. Students followed in their parents' footsteps by choosing educational pursuits which were less likely to lead to high-earning careers, thus leading to social inertia in income across generations.
Social inertia has been used as a way of studying collaborations and interactions between people. Specifically, social inertia has been defined as a measurement of how likely people are to continue collaborating with previous partners or members of the same team. An analysis of large-scale, complex networks such as the IMDb showed that two types of "extreme" collaboration behaviors appeared more than average – some people collaborate with the same partners over and over again, while others change partners frequently. [9]
Psychological studies on attitudes and attitude change have found that participants are reluctant to reduce their confidence in an estimate that they have made even after they receive new information that goes against their original estimate. Researchers have hypothesized that this "inertia effect" is due to participants' psychological commitment to their initial judgments. [10]
Some psychological studies have shown that premarital cohabitation (living together before marriage) is associated with an decreased risk of divorce, and this has been termed the cohabitation effect. [11] Researchers believe that one reason for this effect is that living together increases the inertia of the relationship – i.e. the likelihood that a couple will continue to stay together vs. break up. [12] Inertia in cohabiting couples occurs because living together imposes constraints on a relationship (a shared lease, etc.) that make relationships harder to end. Therefore, a cohabiting couple may stay together even if they are not compatible. Because living together represents an ambiguous form of commitment compared with marriage, cohabiting may not increase the levels of dedication in either partner. Partners may "slide" into marriage through cohabitation instead of making a firm decision to commit to each other, leading to problems in the marriage in the future. [13]
However, the research on whether higher divorce rates are due to the cohabitation effect are mixed. For example, researchers have found that the relationship between cohabitation and divorce also depends on factors such as when the couple was married (for example, marriages which take place after 1996 do not show the cohabitation effect), their race/ethnicity, and their marriage plans at the time of cohabitation. [14] Other studies have found that what has been called the cohabitation effect is entirely attributable to other factors. [15]
The term social inertia was used by A.M. Guhl in 1968 to describe dominance hierarchies in animal groups. [16] Studies of animal behavior have found that groups of animals can form social orders or social hierarchies that are relatively fixed and stable. [17] For example, chickens establish a social order within the group based on pecking behaviors. Even when some of the chickens were treated with an androgen to increase their aggressiveness, the established social order suppressed their exhibition of aggressive behaviors so that social order was maintained. [18]
This same effect has been found in other birds as well as in invertebrates such as social wasps and the burying beetle N. orbicollis. Researchers theorize that this lack of change in social hierarchies even under the influence of aggression hormones is due to the effects of familiarity – animals learn their place in the social hierarchy of a group within the first few encounters with other group members. [19] This will cause low-ranking animals treated with aggression hormones to behave aggressively towards animals from other groups but not towards dominant members of their own group. [20]
The psychologist Michael Zarate has coined the term "cultural inertia" to refer to reactions to social change, such as those caused by immigration. Cultural inertia is defined as the desire to avoid cultural change, and also the desire for change to continue once it is already occurring. Within the cultural inertia framework, the dominant group is stable and resists cultural change, while subordinate groups desire cultural changes which incorporate their cultural traditions so that they don't have to assimilate into the dominant culture. In the context of the United States and immigration, the framework suggests that white majority members resist the cultural change that occurs from immigration, while immigrant groups try to enact change in U.S. culture. [21]
Cultural inertia is related to social psychological theories such as the instrumental model of group conflict, acculturative fit, and system justification theory. It is a contributor to intergroup prejudice due to groups' fear of cultural change. [22]
Aggression is hostile and antagonistic behavior, often with the intent to cause harm, although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reactively or without provocation. In humans, aggression can be caused by various triggers. For example, built-up frustration due to blocked goals or perceived disrespect. Human aggression can be classified into direct and indirect aggression; whilst the former is characterized by physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm to someone, the latter is characterized by behavior intended to harm the social relations of an individual or group.
In social psychology, an interpersonal relation describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences. Relations vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or trends of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.
Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract other people sexually, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context where they appear. The attraction may be to a person's aesthetics, movements, voice, or smell, among other things. The attraction may be enhanced by a person's adornments, clothing, perfume or hair style. It can be influenced by individual genetic, psychological, or cultural factors, or to other, more amorphous qualities. Sexual attraction is also a response to another person that depends on a combination of the person possessing the traits and on the criteria of the person who is attracted.
In social psychology, fundamental attribution error, also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is a cognitive attribution bias where observers underemphasize situational and environmental factors for the behavior of an actor while overemphasizing dispositional or personality factors. In other words, observers tend to overattribute the behaviors of others to their personality and underattribute them to the situation or context. Although personality traits and predispositions are considered to be observable facts in psychology, the fundamental attribution error is an error because it misinterprets their effects.
A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information between humans, but they also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species.
Premarital sex is sexual activity which is practiced by people before they are married. Premarital sex is considered a sin by a number of religions and also considered a moral issue which is taboo in many cultures. Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, it has become accepted by certain liberal movements, especially in Western countries. A 2014 Pew study on global morality found that premarital sex was considered particularly unacceptable in "Muslim Majority Countries", such as Malaysia, Jordan and Pakistan, each having over 90% disapproval, while people in Western European countries were the most accepting, with Spain, Germany, and France expressing less than 10% disapproval.
In the psychology of self, one's self-concept is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?".
Casual sex is sexual activity that takes place outside a romantic relationship and implies an absence of commitment, emotional attachment, or familiarity between sexual partners. Examples are sexual activity while casually dating, one-night stands, prostitution or swinging.
Terror management theory (TMT) is both a social and evolutionary psychology theory originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski and codified in their book The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (2015). It proposes that a basic psychological conflict results from having a self-preservation instinct while realizing that death is inevitable and to some extent unpredictable. This conflict produces terror, which is managed through a combination of escapism and cultural beliefs that act to counter biological reality with more significant and enduring forms of meaning and value.
Cultural psychology is the study of how cultures reflect and shape their members' psychological processes.
According to some theories, emotions are universal phenomena, albeit affected by culture. Emotions are "internal phenomena that can, but do not always, make themselves observable through expression and behavior". While some emotions are universal and are experienced in similar ways as a reaction to similar events across all cultures, other emotions show considerable cultural differences in their antecedent events, the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society. According to other theories, termed social constructionist, emotions are more deeply culturally influenced. The components of emotions are universal, but the patterns are social constructions. Some also theorize that culture is affected by the emotions of the people.
Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, guidance shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choose to conform to society rather than to pursue personal desires - because it is often easier to follow the path others have made already, rather than forging a new one. Thus, conformity is sometimes a product of group communication. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or in society as a whole and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or from direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone. For example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or when watching television, even if alone.
Cognitive inertia is the tendency for a particular orientation in how an individual thinks about an issue, belief, or strategy to resist change. In clinical and neuroscientific literature, it is often defined as a lack of motivation to generate distinct cognitive processes needed to attend to a problem or issue. The physics term inertia is to emphasize the rigidity and resistance to change in the method of cognitive processing that has been in use for a significant amount of time. Commonly confused with belief perseverance, cognitive inertia is the perseverance of how one interprets information, not the perseverance of the belief itself.
Erotic plasticity is the degree to which one's sex drive can be changed by cultural or social factors. Someone has "high erotic plasticity" when their sex drives can be affected by situational, social and cultural influences, whereas someone with "low erotic plasticity" has a sex drive that is relatively rigid and unsusceptible to change. Since social psychologist Roy Baumeister coined the term in 2000, only two studies directly assessing erotic plasticity have been completed as of 2010.
Social determinism is the theory that social interactions alone determine individual behavior.
Marriage and health are closely related. Married people experience lower morbidity and mortality across such diverse health threats as cancer, heart attacks, and surgery. There are gender differences in these effects which may be partially due to men's and women's relative status. Most research on marriage and health has focused on heterosexual couples, and more work is needed to clarify the health effects on same-sex marriage. Simply being married, as well as the quality of one's marriage, has been linked to diverse measures of health. Research has examined the social-cognitive, emotional, behavioral and biological processes involved in these links.
Elizabeth Adkins-Regan is an American comparative behavioral neuroendocrinologist best known for her research on the hormonal and neural mechanisms of reproductive behavior and sexual differentiation in birds. She is currently a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University.
Relational mobility is a sociological variable that represents how much freedom individuals have to choose which persons to have relationships with, including friendships, working relationships, and romantic partnerships in a given society. Societies with low relational mobility have less flexible interpersonal networks. People form relationships based on circumstance rather than active choice. In these societies, relationships are more stable and guaranteed, while there are fewer opportunities to leave unsatisfying relationships and find new ones. Group memberships tend to be fixed, and individuals have less freedom to select or change these relationships even if they wished to.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)