Social Change Flashcards
What is social change?
Social change occurs when a society or a section of society adopt a new belief which becomes widely accepted as the norm
What example was used to show how social change can occur through minority influence?
The suffragettes
What are the 5 COMPONENTS of social change through minority influence?
-referring to suffragette examples
1) Drawing attention to an issue
-used militant and political tactics to draw attention to the issue
2) Cognitive conflict
-minority creates conflict between their views and the majority views
-makes the majority think more deeply about the views
3) Consistency of position
-protested the same views for years
-eventually, after persistence, convinced society to let women vote
4) The Augmentation Principle
-willing to risk their lives and freedom
-leads to their view being taken more seriously and gives them more power
5) The snowball effect
-initially a small impact, but over time more people begin to side with them, which then leads to even more people joining
What is the assumption of social change through conformity?
Behaviour is based on what people THINK is the norm.
Social change through conformity-
what are Social Norm Interventions?
They identify a widespread misconception linked to a dangerous behaviour
-for example, young adults think that people their age drink more than they actually do, leading to them justifying their own excessive drinking
The intervention is used to communicate the ACTUAL NORMS about that behaviour
-therefore it should help ppts to moderate their own behaviour, and bring is back in line with what the norm actually is
Explain an example of a Social Norm Intervention
‘Most of us don’t drink nd drive’ poster
-Social norms intervention designed to reduce drink driving amongst young adults in the USA
-only 20% of them actually have drink driven
-when asked, they believed 92% of their peers had drink driven
-corrected with a poster saying ‘most of us don’t drink and drive’
Led to a 13% decrease in drink driving (corrected the misconception about the norm)
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Social influence through minority influence is very gradual
Minorities like the Suffragettes don’t bring around social change quickly
Therefore the influence of the minority is more latent than direct
-it creates POTENTIAL for change rather than causing the change itself
Therefore minority influence’s role in social influence may be limited or different to what is thought.
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Social Norms Interventions don’t always work
Researcher tested 14 social norms interventions’ effectiveness to reduce alcohol usage
-Students did NOT report lower alcohol consumption
Therefore effectiveness of social norms interventions may be limited
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Being seen as ‘deviant’ may put off the majority from joining the minority
Members of the majority might dismiss the minority’s message simply because they do not want to be seen as ‘deviants’ themselves
-minorities therefore face the double challenge of avoiding being portrayed as deviants, while also trying to get their message across
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Solution for the ‘deviant’ minority problem
Communist Manifesto
-Communism helped to overcome the problem of seeming ‘deviant’
-Marx’s communist manifesto argued that they were really part of the majority, but people didn’t yet realise it
By avoiding being seen as ‘deviants’, they were able to stand as equals to the majority.
This created a powerful image that they would be capable of taking over the majority, which encouraged people to join them
