Social influence and social change

What is social influence

The process by which individuals and groups change each other’s attitudes and behaviours. Includes conformity, obedience, and minority influence

What is social change

When whole societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Example: women’s suffrage

What are the 6 steps in how minority influence creates social change

1) Drawing attention

2) Consistency

3) Deeper processing

4) The augmentation principle

5) The snowball effect

6) Social Cryptomnesia

What is the augmentation principle

The idea that if a person or people continue to carry out action despite great opposition, obstacles, or difficulties their beliefs are perceived as stronger and therefore more valid

What is social cryptomnesia

When people have a memory that change has occurred but don’t remember how it happened

What do environmental and health campaigns do to appeal to normative social influence

Providing information about what other people are doing. E.g. reducing litter by printing normative messages on the bings - “Bin it - others do”, or preventing young people smoking by telling them that most other young people do not smoke. Basically, social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are actually doing

How did Zimbardo suggest that obedience can be used to create social change

Through the process of gradual commitment - once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one. People basically “drift” into a new kind of behaviour

What is a strength

Research has shown that social influence processes based on psych research DO work. Jessica Nolan et al. (2008) aimed to see if they could change people’s energy-use habits. The researchers hung msgs on the front doors of houses in San Diego, Cali, every week for one month. Key msg was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. As a control, some residents had a diff msg that just asked them to save energy, making no reference to other people’s behaviour. There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group compared to second - shows that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through operation of normative social influence

What is a counterpoint to the previous evaluation point

Some studies show that people’s behaviour is not always changed through exposing them to social norms. David Foxcroft et al. (2015) reviewed social norms interventions as part of the ‘gold standard’ Cochrane Collaboration. This review included 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to reduce student alcohol use. The researchers found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency, suggesting that using NSI does not always produce long-term social change

What is another strength

Psychologists can explain how minority influence brings about social change. Charles Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. When people consider minority arguments, they engage in DIVERGENT THINKING - this is broad rather than narrow, where the thinker actively searchers for information and weighs up more options. Nemeth argues this leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues. This shows why dissenting minorities are valuable - they stimulate new ideas and open minds in a way majorities cannot

What is a limitation

Deeper processing may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change. Some people are supposedly converted because they think more deeply about the minority’s views. Diane Mackie (1987) disagrees and presents evidence that it is majority influence that may create deeper processing if you do not share their views. This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same ways as us, therefore when we find out that a majority believes something different, then we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning. This means that a central element of minority influence has been challenged, which casts doubt on its validity as an explanation of social change