Social change Flashcards
Social change
This occurs when whole societies. rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things
Conditions necessary for social change through minority influence
.1. Drawing attention to an issue which opposes the majority position(e.g. segregation in America) through social proof.
2. Consistency: When minorities express their arguments consistently, they are taken more seriously, with meta analysis of 97 studies showing consistent minorities were particularly influential.
3. Deeper processing of issue/minority position: People who accepted the status quo begin to think about the unjustness of it
4. Augmentation principle: If there are risks associated with putting forward the point of view, then the views are taken more seriously.
5. The snowball effect: Minority view catches momentum and becomes a majority view, goes from private acceptance to public expression.
6. Social cryptomnesia: People have the memory social change occurred, but cannot remember how it happened, with public opinion changing gradually over time and accepted as the norm.
Social Impact Theory- social force
’ Social force is generated by persuasion, threat, humour and embarrassment’
Social influence occurs when the combined effects of three factors are significant enough:
1. Strength - powerful, knowledgeable and consistent
2. Immediacy - physical, social or psychological closeness of person providing influence
3. Numbers - how many people are in the group
Terrorism and social change
Kruglanski(2003)- The aim of terrorism is to bring about social change when direct social force is not possible. It’s usually carried out by minority groups.
Kruglanski et al(2007)- suicide bombers devoted, motivated and committed
McVey and Stapleton(2000)- impact of advertising on social change
2997 smokers and 2471 ex-smokers were shown either anti smoking advertising, or in control groups where they viewed no adverts, or they were shownan antismoking campaign and antismoking advertising.
-9.8% of smokers had stopped and 4.3% of ex-smokers had relapsed.
Evaluation - research support for normative influences
Nolan et al investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption in a community:
Found a significant decrease in energy usage in the first group(where signs were hung on doors)
Knowing people were saving energy(NSI) led to social change
