Social Change Flashcards
What is social change?
Occurs when a society or section of society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm.
What are the stages of social change through minority influence?
Drawing attention to an issue. Cognitive conflict. Consistency of position. The augmentation principle. The snowball effect.
What does drawing attention to an issue mean?
Drawing the majorities attention.
If their views are different to those held by the majority, this creates a conflict that they are motivated to reduce.
What’s an example of drawing attention to an issue?
The suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics to draw attention to the fact that women were denied the same voting rights as men.
What does cognitive conflict mean?
Creates a conflict between what majority group members currently believe and the position advocated by the minority.
It makes the majority think more deeply about the issues being challenged
What’s an example of cognitive conflict?
The suffragettes created a conflict between the existing status quo (only men allowed to vote) and the position advocated by the suffragettes (votes for women).
Some people dealt with this conflict by moving towards the position advocated by the suffragettes, other simply dismissed it.
What does consistency of position mean?
Minorities tend to be more influential in bringing about social change when they express their arguments consistently (over time and with each other).
What’s an example of consistency of position?
The suffragettes were consistent in their views, regardless of the attitudes of those around them.
Protests and political lobbying that continued for years, plus the fact that women played a conspicuous role in WW1, eventually convinced society that some women were ready for the vote.
What does the augmentation principle mean?
If a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and so taken more seriously by others.
What’s an example of the augmentation principle?
Because the suffragettes were willing to risk imprisonment or even death from hunger strikes, their influence became more powerful (i.e. it was augmented).
What does the snowball effect mean?
M.I initially has a relatively small effect but this then spreads more widely as more and more people consider the issues being promoted, until it reaches a ‘tipping point’, at which point it leads to wide-scale social change.
What’s an example of the snowball effect?
Universal suffrage (all adult citizens having the vote) was finally accepted by the majority of people in the UK.
How does social change occur through majority influence?
Conformity
Behavioural choices are often related to group norms, i.e. they are the subject of normative influence.
What is the social norms approach?
If people perceive something to be the norm, they tend to alter their behaviour to fit that norm (Perkins and Berkowitz, 1986).
What’s an example of the social norms approach?
If university students think that heavy drinking is the norm, they’ll drink more.
If they think responsible drinking is the norm, then they’ll drink less (i.e. they conform).