The Role of Social Influence Processes in Social Change

How do minority influence processes create social change?

Minority groups are more successful in creating social change when they show consistency, commitment and flexibility in their views. Gradually, the minority turns into the majority due to the snowball effect.

Obedience:

Members of the government are a minority group that can enact dramatic social change by creating laws. When laws are created, societies change to avoid punishment. Examples include making smoking in public places like pubs illegal, anti-discrimination laws and regulating behaviour during a pandemic

Conformity: NSI/Compliance

Behaviours or views can become the norm within a minority group, such as recycling, vaping or fitness in young people, those who go against this norm risk rejection. This norm can then spread to the broader society

Conformity: ISI/Internalisation

Members of a minority group can provide information to the majority, such as the effects of climate change. Wider society changes its behaviour because it accepts this new evidence

What is social crypto-amnesia?

Describes how society adopts ideas from a minority group, however, once the mainstream accepts these ideas and they become the norm, the sacrifices made by the minority group in initiating these positive social changes are not acknowledged but are forgotten over time

AO3 - The Civil Rights Movement

Leaders and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in the US demonstrated consistency and commitment in their fight against racial segregation and for equality. They presented a consistently unified front through nonviolent protests, sit ins and marches. In many cases they suffered abuse at the hands of law enforcement. These committed actions led to many white Americans to reconsider their beliefs on segregation and ultimately this movement led to social change, including the passing of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act

AO3 - LGBTQ+ Rights Movement

The LGBTQ+ Rights Movement has used a combination of consistency in its core message of equality and rights, alongside flexibility to influence societal change. Eg the gay community successfully campaigned for civil partnerships, a strategic (flexible) compromise that ultimately led to the legalisation of same sex marriage

AO3 - Social influence research has practical applications

Such as helping governments understand how to change people’s behaviour. Eg persuading people to eat healthily or take sensible social distancing precautions during a pandemic. In these cases, understanding social change can help the economy by reducing society’s healthcare costs

AO3 - General Evals

Social change often occurs over extended periods, dealing with highly sensitive topics such as inequality, discrimination or social unrest and is the sum of the interactions of millions of members of society. For this reason highly controlled experimental laboratory research on social change is not possible, meaning clear cause and effect relationships can’t be established. Instead researchers depend on natural experiments, case studies and correlational studies to understand social change