Social change Flashcards
What is social change?
It occurs when societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs and behaviours which creates new social norms.
What is the order of the social change processes?
- Social proof
- Deeper processing
- Augmentation principle
- Snowball effect
- Social cryptomnesia
What is social proof?
Seeing others do something which effects our behaviour to draw attention to the issue (‘they think it’s important so it must be’)
What is deeper processing?
Paying attention to a new idea leads us to think about it more deeply as thinking is a cognitive process which could lead to internalisation
What is augmentation principle?
personal risk or self-sacrifice reinforced the message - ‘if a person performs an action when there are known constraints, their motive for acting must be stronger’
What is the snowball effect?
More and more people from the majority switch to the minority view so the minority view gathers more momentum and reaches more people
What is social cryptomnesia?
People forget the source of an idea and the minority group and their idea become dissociated due to cognitive dissonance which is internal conflict when we don’t like the minority group but do like their idea (we accept the idea but ‘forget’ where it came from)
How does conformity link to social change?
NSI - people change their behaviours because they believe others will too and done want to end up as the odd one out
How does obedience link to social change?
Gradual commitment with people obey instructions one step at a time or social change may be in the law, which people obey
What is research evidence for NSI in social change?
Nolan et al (2008) aimed to see if they could change people’s energy use habits. The researchers hung messages on three front doors of houses in San diego every week for a month about energy usage whilst referencing other people’s behaviour, There was a significant decrease in energy usage compared to the control group who’s signs didn’t reference others
