Social change

How does minority influence bring about social change?

1. Drawing attention through social proof

2. Consistency

3. Deeper processing of the issue

4. Augmentation principle

5. Snowball effect

6. Social cryptoamnesia

What is social cryptoamnesia?

People have a memory that change has occurred, but don’t remember how it happened

How does conformity bring about social change?

• Asch shows the importance of dissent, breaking the power of the majority, encouraging others to do the same.

• Environmental and health campaigns exalt conformity by appealing to normative social influence - normative messages on litter bins tops young people smoking. Social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority is actually doing.

How does obedience bring about social change?

• In one of Milgram’s variations, a confederate Teacher refuses to give shocks to the learner - the obedience rates plummeted.

• Zimbardo (2007) suggests obedience can be used to create social change through gradual commitment - once a small instruction is obeyed, it is difficult to resist a bigger one

What research support is there for normative influences?

• Nolan et al. (2008) hung messages on doors of houses in San Diego every week for a month, with a message stating that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage.

• A control message asked them to save energy, without referencing behaviour.

• There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group than the control group.

• Shows how conformity can lead to social change through use of NSI.

How can minority influence explain social change?

• Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking minorities inspire.

• Minority arguments engage in broad thinking, not narrow, encouraging us to search for information and weighing up more options.

• This lead to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues.

• Shows minority influence is useful as it stimulate new ideas that majority cannot.

How is deeper processing not as important as thought?

• Mackie (1987) believes majority influence may create deeper processing if you don’t share their views, as we like when people agree with us.

• When someone doesn’t agree with us, we think hard about why.

• Challenges minority influence, decreasing its validity as an explanation for social change.

Is social change always effective?

Bashir et al. (2013) found participants were less likely to behave in environmentally-friendly way because they didn’t want to be associated with stereotypical and minority environmentalists, seen as ‘tree-huggers’, suggesting there is always resistance to social change