Free Social Change and Development MCQs with Answers
175 Social Change and Development MCQs from Sociology, each with the correct answer and a written explanation of why it is correct. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.
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175 questions · page 9 of 18
81. Auguste Comte described _________________?
- A. Four stages of social change
- B. Two stages
- C. Three stages
- D. None of these
Explanation: Comte's law of three stages describes theological, metaphysical, and positive stages in the development of human thought. The question asks for these three stages, not four or two.
Correct answer: Three stages82. Changes of relationships are primarily___________________________?
- A. Individual changes
- B. Social Change
- C. Cultural Change
- D. None of these
Explanation: Social change includes changes in social relationships, patterns of interaction, and institutions across time. Individual change concerns a person's attributes, while cultural change focuses more narrowly on beliefs, values, and symbols.
Correct answer: Social Change83. The Functionalist view on social change sees development and modernization both________________?
- A. necessary and functional
- B. slow and adaptive
- C. responsive but counterproductive
- D. humanistic and rational
- E. abnormal and troublesome
Explanation: Functionalists usually explain development and modernization as gradual, adaptive processes through which institutions adjust to new conditions and maintain integration. They are therefore described as slow and adaptive rather than abnormal or inherently counterproductive.
Correct answer: slow and adaptive84. The form of capitalism that thrives in some developing countries is characterized by a high degree of____________?
- A. repression
- B. anomie
- C. success
- D. relative depression
- E. solidarity
Explanation: Capitalism in some developing countries operates through authoritarian control, limiting opposition and labour rights, so repression is its defining feature among these options. Anomie means normlessness, not a political characteristic of this form of capitalism.
Correct answer: repression85. _________ is a model whereby public funds are extensively used to promote economic development?
- A. A welfare states
- B. Democracy
- C. State capitalism
- D. Neo-democracy
- E. A liberation government
Explanation: State capitalism uses government ownership, direction or public funds to drive economic development while retaining capitalist production. A welfare state mainly provides social protection, which is a different purpose.
Correct answer: State capitalism86. People who are open to new experience and who tend to reject traditional patterns of authority are said to be experiencing ?
- A. hysteria
- B. countenance
- C. modernity
- D. a cultural hangover
- E. anomie
Explanation: Modernity involves openness to new experiences, weakening of traditional authority and acceptance of social change. Anomie refers instead to normlessness or a breakdown of shared rules.
Correct answer: modernity87. __________ movements advocate for progressive change using different methods than those that have previously failed and are often considered to be anti-government ?
- A. Reactionary
- B. Redundant
- C. Reformist
- D. Radical
- E. Revolutionary
Explanation: Revolutionary movements seek fundamental transformation of the existing social or political order and are therefore often hostile to the government. Reformist movements seek more limited changes within the established system.
Correct answer: Revolutionary88. What theory argues that only certain people will be attracted by the opportunity to participate in a given episode of collective behavior ?
- A. Contagion
- B. Convergence
- C. Emergence
- D. Structural
- E. Reformist
Explanation: Convergence theory holds that collective behaviour attracts people who already share relevant interests, grievances or motivations. Contagion theory instead emphasizes the spread of behaviour through a crowd.
Correct answer: Convergence89. Social revolutions_______________?
- A. involve the gradual evolution of existing state and class structures into new social arrangements
- B. are most likely to occur when political
- C. appear to follow no "natural history"
- D. often begin with intellectuals withdrawing their support of the existing regime
Explanation: Social revolutions commonly begin when intellectuals and other influential groups withdraw their legitimacy from the existing regime, helping undermine its authority. Gradual evolution describes reform or evolutionary change rather than revolution.
Correct answer: often begin with intellectuals withdrawing their support of the existing regime90. Central to the concept of social movement is the idea that _____________?
- A. social movements appear only in times of controlled slow social change
- B. social movements occur inside the institutional framework of everyday life
- C. people intervene in the process of social change
- D. people do not readily undertake joint activityJoin Social Campaigns
Explanation: The defining feature of a social movement is organised collective effort to influence the direction of social change. The other choices either restrict movements unnecessarily or deny the joint activity that makes them possible.
Correct answer: people intervene in the process of social change