social change☑️

includes resistance to social influence, minority influence and social influence/change

resistance to social influence

social support

resisting obedience

pressure to obey can be resisted if someone else is seen to disobey or resist pressure to conform (in milgrams research, disobedience rate dropped from 65% to 10% when naïve p was joined by a disobedient confederate).

dissentors disobedience acts as model of dissent and independent behaviour for p to copy + frees them to act from their own conscience by challenging the legitimacy of the authority figure, making it easier for others to disobey.

social support

evaluation

albrecht et al (2006) evaluated programme to help pregnant teens resist pressure to smoke where social support was provided by a slightly older mentor. teens with a buddy were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group of p’s without a buddy, showing social support can help young people resist social influence for intervention in the real world.

-gamson et al. (1982) told ps to produce evidence to help an oil company run a smear campaign and found higher levels of resistance in study than in milgrams as p’s were in groups so could decide what they wanted to do; 88% rebelled against orders, showing peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of an authority figure.

locus of control (LOC)

theory proposed by rotter (1966) concerned with with internal control in comparison to external control

locus of control - the sense that we each have about what directs events in our life.

types of LOC

-internals (with internal LOC) believe what happens to them are largely controlled by themselves (eg if u do well in exams, its due to hard work vice versa)

-externals (with external LOC) believe things that happen are outside their control (eg if they do well in exam, its due to a good textbook)

the LOC continuum

-suggests that LOC is a scale and individual’s positions vary on it; varying from high external LOC to high internal LOC with the lows lying in between.

LOC characteristics

-high internal LOC are more able to resist pressures to conform or obey, as people who take personal responsibility for their actions and experiences tend to base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than depending on the standards of others. high internal LOC are more self-confident, achievement-orientated, and have higher intelligence (traits that lead to greater resistance to social influence/ traits of a leader, who have less need for social approval than followers)

locus of control

evaluation: strengths

-holland (1967) repeated milgrams baseline study and measured whether p’s were internals or externals; 37% of internals didn’t continue to highest shock level whereas only 23% of externals didn’t (internals showed greater resistance to authority), showing that resistance at least partly related to LOC.

locus of control

evaluation: limitations

twenge et al. (2004) meta-analysis from american LOC studies (1960-2002); people became more resistant to obedience but also more external. so if resistance is linked to internal LOC we would expect peoples to have become more internal, suggesting LOC isn’t a valid explanation of how people resist social influence.

LOC can be considered to only depend on the situation rather than be a dispositional explanation (rotter (1982))

minority influence

minority influence - form of social influence where a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, leading to internalisation or conversion.

[elaborate on blue slide, green slide study]

components of minority influence:

• consistency

• commitment

• flexibility

blue slide, green slide study

consistency

{synchronic consistency- agreement between those in the minority group

{diachronic consistency- saying the same thing over a long period of time

-a consistent minority makes other people start to rethink their own views (‘maybe they have a point if they all think this way/ if they keep saying it’) and intriguing them.

commitment

-minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause (eg some engage in quite extreme activities, personal sacrifice, present some risk to draw attention to their views and show their commitment (the augmentation principle- where commitment helps reconsider others thoughts, ‘she must really believe what she’s saying so perhaps i ought to consider her view’)).

flexibility

-minority must be prepared to adapt their pov and accept reasonable and valid counter arguments as commitment alone may seem rigid and dogmatic (nemeth 1986)

-key is to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility.

explaining the process of change

-hearing something that you already agree with doesn’t make you stop and think but hearing something new makes you might think more deeply about it, especially if the source is consistent, commitment and flexible.

-this deeper processing is important in the conversion process to a different, minority viewpoint, overtime increasing numbers of people switch from minority to majority, becoming ‘converted’ - known as the snowball effect (like a snowball gathering more snow as it rolls along)

minority influence

evaluation: strengths

-evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency; moscovici et al’s blue green slide study showed a consistent minority opinion has a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion. wood et al (1994) 100 study meta-analysis found consistent minorities were the most influential, suggests presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority.

-evidence showing that a change in the majority position does involve deeper processing of the minority’s ideas. martin et al (2003)

minority influence

evaluation: limitations

-artificial task has low external validity as in cases like jury decision making and political campaigning outcomes are vastly more important, sometimes even a matter of life or death ∴ limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real world situations.

social change stages

social influence creates social change through;

1. drawing attention through social proof

2. consistency

3. deeper processing of the issue

4. the augmentation principle

5. the snowball effect

6. social cryptoamnesia

drawing attention

drawing attention to the situation, providing social proof of the problem (eg drawing attention to the schools and restaurants exclusive to white people and the all black neighbourhoods)

consistency

millions of people taking part in marches over several years, always presenting the same non-aggressive messages

deeper processing of the issue

activism meant many people who simply accepted the status quo would begin to think deeply about the unjustness of it

the augmentation principle

individuals risk their lives numerous times; personal risk indicates a strong belief and reinforces/ augments the message (boarding buses in the south or challenging racial segregation of transport)

the snowball effect

activists gradually got the attention of the US government, more and more people supported the minority position (in 1964 the US civil rights act prohibited discrimination, making a change from minority to majority support for civil rights).

social cryptoamnesia

where people have a memory that change occurred but don’t remember how it happened; some people don’t have memory of the events that led to that change.

lessons from conformity research

used by environmental and health campaigns which exploit conformity processes by appealing to NSI by providing information about what other people are doing. eg reducing litter by printing normative messages on bins (Bin it - others do), and preventing young people from taking up smoking (telling them that most other young people do not smoke). social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are actually doing

lessons from obedience research

milgrams research clearly demonstrates the importance of role models of dissent. in the variation where a confederate teacher refuses to give shocks to the learner, genuine ps obedience rate plummeted.

zimbardo (2007) suggested obedience can be used to elicit social change through the process of gradual commitment. once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist to a bigger one as people tend to drift into a new kind of behaviour.

social influence and social change

evaluation: strengths

-research support for NSI; nolan et al (2008) changed energy-use habits by hanging message on residents doors that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. control group residents’ message was simply to save energy, making no reference to other people’s behaviour. significant decreases in energy usage in the experiment group, showing conformity can lead to social change through NSI operations.

-nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to thinking methods that minorities inspire by engaging in divergent thinking, showing why dissenting minorities are valuable as they stimulate new ideas and open minds in a way that majorities can’t.

social change and social influence

evalution: limitations

-may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change. mackie (1987) presents evidence that it is majority influence that may create deeper processing if you don’t share their views as if someone who shares the same thinking and views as you, we are forced to think long and hard about their argument and reasoning