Social Change

Describing socio-cultural change has long been a favorite subject of sociologists.   One common criticism of modern sociology is that it often fails to address real problems with potential solutions.   One possible opportunity by which sociologists might offer solutions can be found in the study of the underlying motivating factors behind social and cultural change.   Cultural lag is one of the theories often used to describe these factors that influence cultural changes.   William Fielding Ogburn wrote many articles on empirical sociological methodology.   He was a strong proponent of the need to use the results for predictive tasks.   Ogburn was also a critic of sociologists who were, in his view, mere reporters of social history (Ogburn, 1929, 1940, 1957,).   Ogburn first described the theory of cultural lag in 1915, although he began developing the theory as early as 1912.   Ogburn’s definition of cultural lag is:
“A cultural lag occurs when one of two parts of culture which are correlated changes before or in greater degree than the other part does, thereby causing less adjustment between the two parts that existed previously (Ogburn 1957).”  
When Ogburn described socio-cultural change and culture in terms of “parts" he relied on a very common model of the day that compared society and culture to an organic model in which the various "parts" were analogous to the organs of the human body.   Later Ogburn used the term to indicate a more mechanical model that likened society to machinery that ran either well or poorly depending on the state of the various “parts”.   While neither of these models remains in great favor, they do provide ways of looking at society.  
The genesis of the theory of cultural lag can be found in Ogburn's fascination with social change and the factors that drive it.   Ogburn sought answers to the questions like: why are cars running off the road on curves?   Ogburn believed that the answer lay in the culture of road building.   When the...