SOCIAL CHANGE Flashcards
what is social change?
this refers to when whole societies rather than just individuals adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things
what is the process of conversion?
if an individual is exposed to a persuasive argument under certain conditions, they may change their views to match the minority. such process is necessary for social change.
what are the 5 factors involved in conversion?
drawing attention to an issue
cognitive conflict
consistency of position
the augmentation principle
the snowball effect
what is the first factor ‘drawing attention to an issue’?
the minorities bring about social change by providing social proof of the problem, drawing attention to it.
what is the second factor ‘cognitive conflict’?
the minority position conflicts with the majority causing the majority to think more clearly about the issues
what is the third factor ‘consistency of position’?
if their message remains the same overtime and between the individuals, it is more likely to bring about social change.
what is the fourth factor ‘the augmentation principle’?
it is a willingness to suffer for their beliefs or an emphasis and exageration of their beliefs which means that they are seen to have greater commitment leading to them being taken more seriously reinforcing their belief.
what is the fifth factor ‘the snowball effect’?
this begins as a relatively small effect that then spreads. it eventually will reach a tipping point at which point leads to a wide-scale social change.
what is social norms intervention?
this aims to bring about behaviour change by exploiting our need to fit in. (normative social influence)
who often uses social norms intervention?
this approach is often used by campaigners who want to bring about a change in behaviour amongst the population. this happens when we a given messages or information about what the majority are doing (the majority can be real or imagined)
AO3: how is ‘supporting evidence for the role of conversion’ a strength to social change?
One strength to research into social change is that there is supporting evidence for the role of conversion. For example, Moscovici carried out a lab experiment to show the importance of consistency in minority influence. He used 192 women in groups of 6 and asked them to name the colour of the slides they were shown, they had to say either green or blue although all slides were various shades of blue. They found that the 2/6 in a group who were confederates when they said the slide was green, in 8.42% of the trials, the participants also said the green, however, 1.25% were not consistent with their answer. This therefore supports the role of consistency and the idea that minorities can impact and effect the changes in peoples perceptions.
AO3: how is ‘supporting evidence for normative social influence’ a strength to social change?
One strength to research into social change is that there is supporting evidence for social normative influence. For example, Nolan et al aimed to see if social normative influence would help to reduce energy consumption in America. They did this by hanging messages on the front doors of peoples houses every week for a month. There were 2 different groups, one that got the message ‘most residents are trying to reduce their energy wastage’ and ‘save energy’. They found that there was a significant energy reduction in group 1, therefore supporting the idea that conformity can lead to social change through normative social influence.
AO3: how is ‘nature of the evidence’ a limitation to social change?
One limitation to research into social change is that there are issues with the nature of the research evidence. This is because a lot of the research that is carried out to help us understand how minorities and majorities bring about social change is done within artificial settings. Although aritifical lab settings do have many benefits to research, it does fail to tell us the extent to which the factors investigated contribute to bringing about social change in the real world. This is because it is much harder to see which variables are contributing to the change as there are many extraneous variables in real life settings that are not accounted for in artificial settings. Therefore, we are left uncertain and unable to conclude the relative importance of which factors are more important when bringing about social change.
AO3: how is ‘problems with minority influence in social change’ a limitation to social change?
One limitation to research into social change is that there are problems with the extent to which the minority influences social change. This is because the role of the minority bringing about social change has been questioned due to humans having such a strong tendency to go along with the majority. This makes us wonder wether it is more that the minority creates the potential for social change rather than creating the actual change itself. This therefore suggests that minorities are only a factor in the social change rather than the cause of the change.
