Social change

Question 1

Social change

Answer 1

Occurs when whole societies adopt new attitudes and beliefs - e.g women’s rights, gay rights, climate change

Question 2

Process of social change

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Social change - evaluation - strength

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

Social change - evaluation - limitation

Answer 4

• 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