Lesson 13- Social Change

Question 1

What is social change

Answer 1

Social change is when a whole society changes and adopts new beliefs/behaviours which becomes the norm. It is commonly a result of minority influence- when an individual or small group of individuals impact upon the majority.

Question 2

Why do we need minorities?

Answer 2

Without them, social injustices would not be challenged and we wouldn’t not have any innovation. By constantly following a majority, there wouldn’t be any change and improvement in society.

Question 3

Examples of social change

Answer 3

• homosexuality stopped being a criminal offence in 1967 and in 2005 same sex marriages were introduced
• black rights in America
• women’s rights to vote from suffragettes movement

Question 4

Steps involved in creating social change

Answer 4

1. Drawing attention to the issue
2. Consistency of position- consistent minority groups are more influential
3. Deeper processing- people not part of the minority start to pay attention to the minority by thinking about what the status quo is and perhaps the unjustness of it
4. The augmentation principle- if a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and are taken more seriously e.g. big event
5. The snowball effect- minority influence originally has small effect but grows until tipping point and then becomes wide scale. Conformity then occurs through NSI or ISI and society may change views.
6. Social cryptoamnesia- majority knows social change has occurred but the source of change has become disassociated through the process of social cryptoamnesia and they do not recall what happened.

Question 5

Lessons from conformity research

Answer 5

• in one variation of Aschs experiment, we learnt that when one confederate broke unanimity of majority, conformity rates dropped even if it was the wrong answer
• such dissent ultimately has the power to lead to social change

Question 6

Lessons from obedience research

Answer 6

• Milgrams research showed how when one disobedient person refused to give the shock then obedience rates decreased dramatically
• Zimbardo (2007) suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment
• once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes increasingly difficult to resist further instructions i.e. social change can happen when one disobedient person can take the correct decision and other will follow

Question 7

Lessons from minority influence research

Answer 7

• Moscovicis research demonstrated the needs to be committed, flexible and consistent if one is going to bring about social change
• over time, increasing numbers of people can switch from majority to minority- known as the snowball effects
• finally, the minority becomes the majority and social change will have successfully occurred

Question 8

Strengths of the role of social influence processes in social change

Answer 8

There is evidence for the role of NSI in bringing about social change
- Nolan (2008) investigated whether social influence processes lead to a reduction in the consumption of energy
- He hung messages on doors of houses in San Diego every week for one month to reduce their energy usage
- A control group had a message not referring to other residents instead just to save energy
- It was found that the group that referred other residents had shown a decrease in energy usage thus stating that conformity can lead to social change through NSI

Question 9

Weaknesses of the role of social influence processes in social change

Answer 9

Nemeth (1986) that the effects of minority influence are likely to be mostly indirect and delayed
- indirect because the majority is influenced only on the matters at hand, not the central issues itself
- they are delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time
- however, this could be seen as a limitation of using minority influence to explain social change because it shows that its effects are fragile and limited. Furthermore, this then makes it difficult to test and measure in a scientific setting because social change does not happen straightaway

May be barriers to social change as investigated by Bashir et al (2013) who found that pps were less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways as they did not want to be associated with environmentalists who were stereotyped as ‘tree huggers’
- thus social change can only happen if the minority is not associated with negative and extremist stereotypes which can be very difficult to shift
- means its more difficult to study social change when there are barriers to social change in general