Social Change Flashcards
Social change-minority influence
-drawing attention through social proof
-consistency
-deeper processing
-augmentation principle
-snowball effect
-social cryptomnesia (no memory of how social change occurred.)
Lessons from conformity research
Asch- one confederate gave correct answer, broke power of majority, encouraging others to- has potential to lead to social change.
Some campaigns provide information about what other people are doing- e.g. reducing litter- ‘bin it-others do’- NSI
Lessons from obedience research
Milgrams research demonstrates importance of disobedient role models. Another disobedient teacher.
Zimbardo (2007) suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment. Once small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one. People essentially drift into a new kind of behaviour.
Strength- research
Nolan et al (2008) aimed to see if they could change peoples energy use habits. Researchers hung messages on front doors every week for a month- key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. As a control, some residents had a different message that just asked them to save energy. Significant decrease in energy usage in first group. Shows that conformity can lead to social change through NSI.
Strength-minority influence
Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. Minority arguments make people think.
Limitation-deeper processing
Some people are supposedly converted because they think more deeply about the minority’s views. 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 way as us. When we find out that a majority believes something different, then we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning
