Social change Flashcards
1
Q
Social change
A
Occurs when whole societies adopt new attitudes and beliefs - e.g women’s rights, gay rights, climate change
2
Q
Process of social change
A
1) Drawing attention - minority must draw attention to cause
2) Consistency
3) Deeper processing - people think deeper about cause
4) Augmentation principle - minority risk lives/engage in dangerous activities for cause
5) Snowball effect - Finally gain attention, minority becomes the majority
6) Social cryptomnesia - People have memory that the change occured but don’t know how it happened
3
Q
Social change - evaluation - strength
A
- Minority influence explains change
- Researchers claim social change is due to type of thinking that minorities inspire
- This thinking is wide rather than narrow - thinker actively searches for information and weighs up more options
- Argues this leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues
- Shows why minorities are valuable
4
Q
Social change - evaluation - limitation
A
- Role of deeper processing
- DP might not play a role in how minorities bring about social change
- Research has shown that minority influence may create deeper processing if you don’t share their views - because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same way as us
- When majority believes something different we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning