Social Change Flashcards
(16 cards)
what does social influence lead to?
social change
what is social change?
this occurs when whole societies rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things
what are the 6 steps to social change?
- drawing attention
- consistency
- deeper processing
- augmentation principle
- snowball effect
- social cryptomnesia
what is drawing attention?
raising awareness and providing social proof
what is consistency?
being persistent with the message and the intention of tackling the problem
what is deeper processing?
people who simply accepted the status quo begin to question the intention
what is augmentation principle?
engaging in extreme behaviour to actively challenge the issue and demonstrate commitment
what is the snowball effect?
switching from the minority to the majority viewpoint (tipping point)
what is social cryptomnesia?
people know that the social change has occurred but can’t remember how it happened
what does zimbardo say about social change?
- obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment
what is gradual commitment?
- once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one
- people essentially drift into a new kind of behaviour
what is the conformity research that links to social change(Asch)?
- Asch - a dissenter in one of his variations, has potential to lead to social change
what is the conformity research that links to social change?
- appealing to NSI
- providing info about what other people are doing (for environmental and health campaigns)
- social change can be encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are actually doing
what is a strength of social change?
- social influence processes on social changes
- Nolan et al = wanted to change energy use patterns of people in San Diego, California
- they put up messages on the front of doors every week for a month, saying your residents are trying to reduce their energy usage, and the control group made no reference to the residents
- significant decrease in energy usage for first group
what is another strength of social change?
- minorities cause social change due to their type of thinking
- divergent thinking = this is broad and not narrow, involves actively searching for information and weighing up the options
- leads to better decisions and more creative solutions
what is a weakness of social change?
minorities may not have a role id deeper processing
- some people are supposedly converted by thinking more deeply about
- Mackie disagrees and says that it is the majority that causes deeper processing, when we find out the majority think differently to us we are forced to think long and hard about it