Social change

Social change AO1

• When whole societies (rather than individuals) adopt new attitudes, beliefs & ways of doing things as a result of minority influence

• Examples - suffragette movement for women’s rights, civil rights movement in America & idea of recycling

Lessons from minority influence AO1

• Drawing attention to the issue & showing commitment eg marches & protests

• Consistency

• Augmentation principle - people take part in extreme activities & risk their lives eg the’ freedom riders’ in the civil rights movement who got on buses & were beaten as a result

• Snowball effect

Lessons from conformity AO1

• Social support - in one of Asch’s variations he had a dissenter confederate who gave the right answer & didn’t conform to majority which influenced participants to not conform also - can lead to social change

• NSI - environmental & health campaigns provide info about what others are doing to increase conformity eg “Bin it - others are doing it” - can lead to social change

Lessons from conformity strength AO3

• P - research to support the involvement of conformity processes in social change

• E - Nolan et al investigated if NSI could lead to a reduction in energy consumption in a community. He hung messages on the doors saying other residents were trying to reduce their energy usage compared to a control group who were asked to save energy but didn’t reference other people’s actions. Found that the first group had decreased energy usage than control group

• T - conformity can lead to social change through NSI as people want to fit in with the majority & be liked

Lessons from obedience AO1

• Gradual commitment - Zimbardo suggested once a small instruction is obeyed it becomes harder to resist a bigger one - people drift into new behaviours

• Dictators can bring social change through obedience processes - followers be put in agentic state & feel no responsibility as acting as an agent for dictator

Lessons from minority influence limitations AO3

• P - social change happens slowly through minority influence

• E - it has taken decades for attitudes against smoking to change - first public smoking ban was introduced in early 2000s. Nemeth argues the effects of minority influence are indirect & delayed as effects may not be seen for some time eg social cryptomnesia & snowball effect

• T - minority influence’s in its role of social change may be limited, ineffective & quite fragile which questions internal validity