4.1.1 Influence and social change Flashcards
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world
African-American civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60s
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world - list
Drawing attention through social proof
Consistency
Deeper processing
Augmentation principle
Snowball effect
Social cryptomnesia
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world - drawing attention
Drawing attention through social proof. In the 1950s, black and white segregation applied. The civil right marches of this period drew attention to this situation, providing social proof of the problem.
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world - consistency
Consistency – civil rights activists represented a minority of the American population, but their position remained consistent. Millions of people took part in many marches over several years, always presenting the same non-aggressive messages
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world - deeper processing
Deeper processing of the issue – the activism meant that many people who had simply accepted the status quo began to think deeply about the unjustness of it
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world - the augmentation principle
The augmentation principle – individuals risked their lives numerous times. For example the ‘freedom riders’ were mixed ethnic groups who boarded buses in the south, challenging segregation of transport. Many freedom riders were beaten. This personal risk indicates a strong belief and reinforces their message
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world - the snowball effect
The snowball effect – Activists (eg: Martin Luther King) gradually got attention of the US government. More and more people backed the minority position. In 1964 the US Civil Right’s Act prohibited discrimination, marking a change from minority to majority support for civil rights.
Steps on how minority social influence creates social change in the real world
Social cryptomnesia - people have the memory that change has occurred but don’t remember how it happened.
Evaluation - research support for normative influence
Strength - research has shown that social influence processes based on psychological research do work
Jessica Nolan et al. (2008) – research to see whether they could change people’s energy-use habits
The researchers hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego every week for a month – the message saying that “most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage”
As a control, some residents were given a different message that just told them to save energy with NO reference to other people’s behaviour
The results showed a significant decrease in energy usage in the first group
This shows that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence. VALID
Evaluation - counterpoint
Weakness - however some studies show that people’s behaviour is not always changed through exposing them to social norms.
David Foxcroft et al. (2015) reviewed social norms interventions as part of the ‘gold standard’ Cochrane Collaboration.
This review included looking at 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to reduce student alcohol use.
The researches found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency.
Therefore using normative influence does NOT always produce long-term social change.
Evaluation - minority influence explains social change
Strength – psychologist can explain how minority influence brings about social change
Charlan Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire.
When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking
This type of thinking is broad rather than narrow, in which the thinker actively searches for information and weighs up more options.
Nemeth argues 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 can’t
Evaluation - role of deeper processing
Weakness – 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 view.
Diane Mackie (1987) disagrees and presents evidence that it is majority influence that may create deeper processing if you do not share their views.
This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same ways as us.
When we find that a majority believes something different, then we are forced to think about their argument and reasoning.
This means that a central element minority influence has been challenged, casting doubt on its validity as an explanation of social change.
Evaluation extra - barriers to social change
However, according to Nadia Bashir et al. (2013) people still resist social change
Bashir et al. found that their participants were less likely to behave in environmentally-friendly ways because they did not want to be associated with stereotypical and minority ‘environmentalists’.
They described environmental activists in negative ways (eg: tree huggers).
Despite the resistance, the researchers were still able to suggest ways in which minorities can overcome barriers to social change
