Social Change Flashcards
What is Social change
Social change is when a whole society changes and adopts new beliefs/ways of behaving, which then becomes the norm. It commonly is a result of minority influence- when an individual or small group of individuals impact upon the majority.
Examples of social change
If minorities did not exist and were not influential then we would simply go along with the majority all the time, and there would never be any change in society, no new ideas (innovation) would enter our culture, no unfairness’s would be challenged, and society would never improve.
One example of social change is attitudes towards homosexuality. Although it was a imprisonable offence in the UK until 1967, public attitudes have changed over time and most people now regard being gay as a normal variation of human behaviour.
Eventually new laws have been created to protect the rights of gay people, and in 2005 same sex civil partnerships were introduced. This represents a huge change in society in a relatively short period of just 50 years.
What are the steps in how minority influence creates social change
Drawing Attention to the Issue - Minorities can bring about social change by drawing the majority’s attention to an issue.
2.Consistency of position - Minority groups are more influential when they express arguments consistently, over time and with each other.
3.Deeper processing – other 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
- The augmentation principle - If a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and are taken more seriously – for example, doing something ‘wow’ which will catch the majority’s attention – this supports the minority influence characteristic of commitment
- The snowball effect - Minority influence initially has a relatively small effect but this then spreads more widely, as more and more people consider the issue being raised, until it reaches a tipping point, where the minority becomes the majority and there is wide-scale social change. This is when conformity will occur either through Normative Social Influence or Informational Social Influence and everyone will follow each other. Perhaps even laws will be made which people are then bound to follow (obedience to authority).
6.Social cryptoamnesia – the majority knows that a social change has occurred but the source of the change and the message itself has become disassociated through the process of social cryptoamnesia and they do not recall how it happened. This could be because it is the law and we all have to obey the law so we don’t always think how this law came about e.g. it is now the law that we have to treat people equally regardless of their background otherwise we will be punished through the Discrimination and Equality Act.
How does social change come about
1) When a minority has an effective message.
2) Have persuasive arguments which they consistently spread are committed to.
3) Some people in the majority are forced to examine the minority message, and may internalise it.
4) The message is then passed on to many other majority members through the snowball effect until the minority becomes the majority.
5) In time, the source of the message is forgotten and all that remains is the new social norm. This is called social cryptoamnesia
Lessons from conformity research
In one variation of Asch’s experiment, we learned that when one confederate gave a difference answer to the majority then conformity rates dropped even if the answer was incorrect. Such dissent has the potential to ultimately lead to social change. Environmental and health campaigns exploit conformity processes through NSI (Normative Social Influence). They do this by giving information e.g. ‘bin it- others do’ - suggesting that the majority of society are saving the environment and this is the norm! In other words, social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority is doing!
Lessons from obedience research
Milgram’s research also 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. In other words, social change can happen when one disobedient person can take the correct decision and others will follow
Lessons from minority influence research
Moscovici’s research demonstrated the needs to be committed, flexible and consistent if one is going to bring about social change. If you hear something new, then you might think about it especially if the source is consistent and passionate – the conversion is possible. It is this process which can eventually bring about social change. Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority to the minority - known as the snowball effect. Finally the minority then becomes the majority and social change has occurred successfully!
Strengths of the role of social influence process in social change
There is research evidence for the role of normative social influence in bringing about social change. Nolan (2008) investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in the consumption of energy. He hung messages on the door of houses in San Diego every week for one month. The key message was that most residents were trying 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 to other residents had shown a decrease in energy usage. Thus stating that conformity can lead to social change through normative social influence.
Weaknesses of the role of social influence processes in social change
The problem with studying in the process of minority influence in social change is that Nemeth (1986) argues that the effects of minority influence are likely to be mostly indirect and delayed. They are 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.
Also, there may be barriers to social change as investigated by Bashir et al. (2013) who found that participants were less likely to behave in environmental 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 influence is not associated with negative and extremist stereotypes which can be very difficult to shift. This means that studying social change is even more difficult when there are barriers to social change in general.
