Social influence processes in social change

How does social change happen? (2 ways)

Through minority or majority influence.

What is an example of social change through minority influence in history?

The suffragettes - they fought for women having the right to vote.

How can the minority influence individuals?

If an individual is exposed to a persuasive argument under certain conditions, they may change their views to match those of the minority.

What did Moscovici (1980) refer to this process as?

‘Conversion’.

This is a necessary prerequisite for social change.

What are the five stages of the conversion process?

1. Drawing attention to the issue

2. Cognitive conflict

3. Consistency of position

4. The augmentation principle

5. The snowball effect

Explain stage 1 - drawing attention to an issue.

If the minority’s views are different to the majority’s they can draw attention to their issue. They can do this by using tactics and strategies.

The suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics to draw attention to the fact that women were denied the same voting rights as men.

Explain stage 2 - cognitive conflict.

The minority creates a conflict between what majority members currently believe and the position advocated by the minority.

This results in the majority group members thinking more deeply about the issues being challenged.

The suffragettes created a conflict between only men being allowed to vote (existing status quo) and votes for women (their position).

Some people dealt with this conflict by moving towards the position of the suffragettes, others simply dismissed it.

Explain stage 3 - consistency of position.

Research has established that minorities tend to be more influential in bringing about social change when they express their arguments consistently over time.

The suffragettes were consistent in their views - protesting for years. This eventually convinced some people that women were ready for the vote.

Explain stage 4 - the augmentation principle.

If a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and so are taken more seriously by others.

The suffragettes went on hunger strikes. Some members even went to prison or died for the cause.

Explain stage 5 - the snowball effect.

Minority influence initially has a small effect but this then spreads more widely as more people consider the issues being promoted.

It eventually reaches a ‘tipping point’, leading to wide-scale social change.

Universal suffrage was finally accepted by the majority of people in the UK.

How can social change through majority influence happen?

Through conformity.

What has research consistently demonstrated that behavioural choices are often related to?

Group norms.

i.e they are the subject of normative influence.

What does the social norms approach (Perkins and Berkowitz, 1986) propose?

That if people perceive something to be the norm, they tend to alter their behaviour to fit that norm.

Eg if university students think that heavy drinking is the norm, they’ll drink more - they conform.

What is behaviour therefore based more on?

What people think others believe and do - the ‘perceived norm’.

Behaviour is based less on people’s real beliefs and actions - the ‘actual norm’.

What is the gap between the perceived and actual norm called?

A ‘misperception’.

What is correcting misperceptions the basis for?

The basis for an approach to social change known as social norms interventions.

This social change happens through majority influence.

How do social norms interventions typically start?

By identifying a widespread misperception relating to a specified risky behaviour within a target population.

What is a real life example of social norms interventions?

Eg young adults generally misperceive the amount of alcohol typically consumed by their peers, and a result develop norms that justify their own heavy drinking behaviour.

Perception correction strategies are then used in media campaigns, promotional material and through other routes.

What is the aim of perception correction strategies?

To communicate to the target population the actual norm concerning the particular behaviour.

What do researchers hope that recipients will do as a result of being exposed to actual norms?

That they drop moderate their own behaviour to bring it more in line with the behaviour of their peers.

What was your the aim of the ‘Most of Us’ (don’t drink and drive) social norms intervention?

To reduce drinking and driving among young adults in Montana, USA.

What was the procedure of the intervention?

The researchers corrected the young adult’s misperception that over the majority of their peers engaged in drink driving in the last month (found to be only 20%).

They corrected this misperception with the simple message that ‘MOST Montana Young Adults (4 out of 5) Don’t Drink and Drive’.

What were the findings of the intervention?

The researchers found that drink driving was reduced by 13.7% compared to counties that didn’t run the campaign.

Conclusions - what did the corrections of misperceptions about the norm of drink driving lead to?

Positive changes in personal attitudes among the target population, young people, and a reduction in the frequency of their risky behaviours.

Positive eval

Rwa - the birth of communism. To avoid being viewed as deviants, early communists made it clear that they were really part of the majority (supporting the working class).

Through this, they were able to overthrow the majority and create social change.

This is evidence of the ‘conversion process’ through minority influence. This means that this process has high validity.

Negative eval

Minorities are often perceived as deviant by the majority. This limits their potential for social change, as people avoid aligning themselves with the minority position to not be seen as deviant themselves. Additionally, the majority tend to focus on the source of the message (the deviant minority) rather than the message itself.

Gradual process - social change through minority influence takes many years. Therefore it can be argued that the minority creates the potential for change rather than actual social change.

Boomerang effect - Schulz (2007) suggests that people whose behaviour is more desirable than the norm being pushed will also receive social norm intervention messages, and then act negatively. He argued that these people will increase the negative aspects of their behaviour being advertised in order to be more in line with the norm. Schulz referred to this as the ‘boomerang effect’ - it goes both ways.