social influence and social change

Question 1

what is social change?

Answer 1

this occurs when whole societies, rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and accepted practices.
Minority influence, conformity and obedience are all important within social change

Question 2

how do the minorities create social change?

Answer 2

1. drawing attention
2. consistency
3. deeper processing (creating conflict)
4. the augmentation principle
5. the snowball effect
6. social crypto-amnesia

Question 3

how is social change often encoraged?

Answer 3

by using normative social influence and convincing people to do something because others are

Question 4

how did zimbardo suggest obedience can be used to create social change?

Answer 4

through the process of gradual commitment, once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one

Question 5

what are some examples of social change?

Answer 5

suffragette movement, increased recycling

Question 6

evaluation points for social change

Answer 6

strength: research support for normative social influence
limitation: minority influence is only indirectly effective
limitation: role of deeper processing
limitation: barriers to social change

Question 7

strength: research support for normative influences

Answer 7

•Nolan investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption in a community
•they hung messages on front doors in America every week for one month, the key message being that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage
•as a control, some residents just had signs asking them to save energy with no reference to the other people’s behaviour
•Nolan found significant decreases in energy usage in the first group
•this is a strength because it shows that conformity can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence

Question 8

limitation: minority influence is only indirectly effective

Answer 8

•social changes happen slowly when it happens at all
•Nemeth argues that the effects of minority influence are likely to be mostly indirect and delayed
•they are indirect because the majority is influenced on matters only related to the issues at hand, and not the central issue itself. they are delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time
•this could be considered a limitation of using minority influence to explain social change because it shows that it’s effectiveness is fragile and it’s role in social influence very limited

Question 9

limitation: role of deeper processing

Answer 9

•Moscovici’s conversion explanation of minority influence argues that minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes
•that is, minority influence causes people to think more deeply about an issue than majority influence (conformity)
•Mackie disagrees with this and presents evidence that states majority influence may create deeper processing if you do not share your views
•when we find that the majority thinks something different, we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning
•this means that a central argument of the process of minority influence has been challenged and may be incorrect, casting doubt on the validity of Moscovici’s theory

Question 10

limitation: barriers to social change

Answer 10

•Bashir investigated why people so often resist social change, even when they agree that it is necessary
•this may be because they do not want to be associated with the unfavourable stereotypes often associated with some opinionated minority groups
•the researchers advice to minorities hoping to create social change is to avoid behaving in ways that reinforce the stereotype because this will always be off-putting to the majority they want to influence