SOCIAL CHANGE

→ Social change occurs when a whole society adopts a new belief or behaviour which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’

~MINORITY INFLUENCE BRINGING SOCIAL CHANGE~

  1. Drawing Attention To The Issue - if we are exposed to the views of a minority, this draws our attention to it

  2. Deeper Processing - minority creates a conflict between what majority group members currently believe and the position advocated by the minority

  3. Consistency - minorities tend to be more influential in bringing about social change when they express their arguments consistently (over time and with each other)

  4. The Augmentation Principle - if a minority appears to be willing to suffer for their views, they’re seen as more committed and so are taken more seriously by others

  5. The Snowball Effect - minority influence initially has a relatively small effect, but this then spreads more widely until the minority becomes the majority

  6. Social Cryptomnesia - people have a memory that change has occurred, but don’t remember exactly how it happened

→ Zimbardo suggested that obedience could be used to create social change through the processes of gradual commitment (i.e. once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one)

EVALUATION

Research Support

→ RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR NORMATIVE INFLUENCES

  • One strength is that research has shown that social influence processes based on psychological research do work.

  • Psychologists aimed to see if they could change people’s energy-use habits. the researchers hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego, every week for one month.

  • As a control, some houses were given signs that asked them to save energy but didn’t make reference to other people’s behaviour.

  • There were significant decreases in energy uses in the first group compared to the second, showing that conformity can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence.

  • However, some studies show that people’s behaviour is not always changed through exposing them to social norms.

  • Psychologists reviewed social norms interventions. 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 frequently.

  • This shows that using normative influence does not always produce long-term social change.

→ MINORITY INFLUENCE EXPLAINS CHANGE

  • Another strength is that psychologists can explain how minority influence brings about social change.

  • Psychologists claim social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking, which is a broader way of thinking.

  • Psychologists argue that 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 that majorities cannot.

Conflicting Evidence

→ ROLE OF DEEPER PROCESSING

  • One limitation is that 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. However, some psychologists disagree and believe that it is the majority influence that creates deeper processing if you do not share their views.

  • This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think the same as us. When we find out 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, casting doubt on its validity as an explanation of social change.