Minority influence processes in social change Flashcards
What is social change
Society as a whole adopt new attitudes, beliefs and behaviours
Occurs at a gradual pace
Minority influence is the main driving force for social change
What is stage 1 of social change
Drawing attention to an issue - majority are made aware of the need for change by the minority
E.g - Suffragettes making political/educational arguments
What is stage 2 of social change
Consistency of position - Minority express their views consistently to seem credible
E.g - Suffragettes continuous protesting
What is stage 3 of social change
Deeper processing - Minority cause conflict between the majority group causing them to think about the minority view
E.g - Conflict between men/women and suffragettes
What is stage 4 of social change
Augmentation principle - Minority sacrificing something to be taken more seriously/spread their view
E.g - Suffragettes going on hunger strikes and being imprisoned
What is stage 5 of social change
Snowball effect - Minority view spreads causing people to switch from a majority position to minority position(social change occurs here)
E.g - Majority position considering suffragettes view leading to women being able to vote
What is stage 6 of social change
Social cryptomnesia - People remember social change happening but not how it happened
E.g - Women are now allowed to vote but nobody remembers how
How does conformity influence social change
Normative messages can influence social change through NSI e.g. reducing litter through messages on bins
ISI can also influence social change through education e.g. providing people with enough info to stop them from turning to others in situations such as smoking
How does obedience influence social change
Milgram’s variation research showed how a disobedient role model caused obedience to decrease
How does gradual commitment(augmentation principle) affect social change
Gradual commitment leads to social change
Gradual commitment - Slowly increasing demands to increase the chance of getting what you want rather than asking for extreme demands straight away
A03’s for social change
Social change isn’t as simple as portrayed - Research shows that stereotypical nature prevents social change even when the majority agrees its needed
Methodological issues - social change explanations relies on Milgram, Asch and Zimbardo’s research(artificial task research)
Culturally biased - Different cultures may undergo social change faster or slower/in different stages with more or less difficulty which means it can’t be generalised
Issues and debates for minority influence processes in social change
Nomothetic vs ideographic - Previous research used e.g. Asch, Milgram, Moscovici etc, all take nomothetic approaches
