Influence And Social Change Flashcards
Social influence
The process by which individuals and groups change other’s attitudes and behaviours. Includes conformity, obedience and minority influence
Social change
“This occurs when whole societies, rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things. Eg: accepting the earth is round, women’s suffrage, gay rights and environmental issues.”
Example of how minority influence creates social change
American civl rights movement, gay rights movements, suffragettes
Steps for minority influence
- Drawing attention
- Consistency
- Deeper processing
- The augmentation principle
- The snowball effect
- Social cyptomnesia
Step 1 - drawing attention
Through social proof. In the 1950s, white and black were segregated. The civil rights marches draw attention to this situation, providing segregation as proof
Step 2 - consistency
Civil rights activists were a minority, but position remained consistency. Millions took place in marches over years, and always had the same non-aggressive messages
Step 3 - deeper processing
Activism meant that many who had accepted situation began to think deeply about unjustness
Step 4 - augmentation principle
Indviduals risked lives, ‘freedom riders’ - mixed ethnic groups that boarded buses in south and challenged segregation on transport. They were often beaten, personal risk indicated strong belief
Step 5 - snowball effect
Activists got attention of US government, more and more supported position. 1964 - US civil right act
Step 6 - social cryptomnesia
People know a change has occurred but can remember how it happened
Lessons from conformity research
Asch’s research - highlighted importance of dissent
One confederate gave correct answer, power of majority broken and encouraged participant to do same
Normative social influence
Providing information about what people are doing, for example reducing litter by putting normative information on a bin, e.g ‘bin it, others do’
Lessons from obedience research
Milgram’s variation - confederate refuses to obey, participant obedience dropped
Zimbardo suggested that obedience can create social change through gradual commitment. Once a small instruction is obeyed, its harder to resist a bigger one
Research support for normative influence
Research has show that social influence processes do work
Jessica Nolan et al (2008) - research to see whether they could change people’s energy-use habit
Hung message on the front door of houses in San Diego every week for a month - ‘most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage’
Control - some resident were given a different message that just told them to save energy with no reference to others
Results - significant decrease in energy usage in first group, showing that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through normative social influence
Counterpoint to research
Some studies show that people’s behaviour is not always changed through exposing them to social norms
David Foxcroft et al (2015)
Looked at 70 studies where social norms are used to reduce student alcohol use
Found no effect on drinking frequency or drinking quantity
Does therefore not always produce long term social change