social change

social change

when whole societies adopt new ways of thinking/behaving

social influence processes

processes by which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours

minority infleunce bringing about social change steps

1. drawing attention to issue

2. consistency of position

3. deeper processing

4. the argumentation principle

5. the snowball effect

6. social cryptomnesia occurs (memory that change occurred)

conformity on social change

by letting people know what other people (the majority) are doing, people can be encouraged to conform to this way of behaving

resistance to social influence on social change

research into obedience and conformity has shown that presence of one or more people who resists the pressure to conform or obey can reduce the likelihood of other people conforming or obeying (social support)

studies-

Milgram- 2nd teacher ‘confederate’ 65%→ 10%

Asch- conformity dropped to less than ¼ when there was a dissenter

evaluate minority influence bringing about social change

• it might work→ supporting research evidence- Moscovici found 32% of participants gave same answer as minority, even though it was clearly wrong, in at least one of the trials. Suggests minority influence can change behaviour of others. HOWEVER, this study was not about social change, the task of identifying the colour of a tile is different to changing opinions on real-life matters such as voting for women. This lack of ecological validity means that research evidence is limited in terms of its support for the role of minority on social change

• might not work- potential for minorities to influence social change is often limited because they are seen as ‘deviant’ in the eyes of the majority. For example, Bashir et al (2013) found that participants were less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways because they did not want to be associated with ‘tree huggers’. They also viewed feminists as ‘man haters’. This means the minority groups need to be careful to avoid stereotypes which may be off-putting to the majority and instead stick to their core consistent message with an element of flexibility to avoid ostracizing themselves

evaluate conformity’s role on social change

• might work- supporting evidence- Nolan et al (2008) found a significant decrease in energy usage in the group that were informed ‘more residents’ were trying to reduce energy usage in comparison to the group who were given a message to try reduce energy usage but were not told anything about what other residents were doing. This suggests that conforming to a majority can lead to social change. This evidence is high in ecological validity because it was a field study and participants were not aware they were taking part in a study so the study measures real life social change as their behaviour was natural. This means we can generalise the results to real life social change.