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social inertia or cultural inertia is the resistance to change or the permanence of stable relationships possibly outdated in societies or social groups.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.
Overview
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." 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.
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.
Examples
In the culture of honor
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. 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. Therefore, religion and poverty have been offered as alternative explanations for the origins of the culture of honor.
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.
In creative labor
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. 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.