Social Influence And Social Change Flashcards
What are the steps for social influence to create social change?
1) Drawing attention
2) Consistency
3) Deeper processing
4) Augmentation principle
5) Snowball effect
6) Social cryptomnesia (people have a memory a change has occurred but don’t remember how it happened)
What’s one approach done by campaigners to provide social influence?
They exploit conformity processes by appealing to normative social influence. They provide info about what others are doing by drawing attention to the majorities actions.
What did Zimbardo suggest about obedience causing social change?
Process of gradual commitment, once a small instruction is obeyed it becomes harder to resist a bigger one. People “drift” into a new behaviour
Brief evaluation for social change?
Research support for normative influences
Minority influence explains change (strength)
Role of deeper processing limited
What are the strengths of social change? (Depth)
Research provides support that social influence processes do work. Nolan et al aimed to see if they could change peoples energy-use habits , she hung messages in the front doors of houses about most residents reducing energy usage. As a control she did one about saving energy not mentioning others. Significant decreases in energy usage in first group compared to second. This shows conformity can leas to social change through NSI. HOWEVER, some studies show behaviour isn’t always changed by introducing to social norms., as a review included 70 studies where the social norms norms approach was used t reduce students alcohol use and only found a small reduction in quantity and not frequency. NSI doesn’t always produce long term social change
Minority influence bring about social hange. Nemeth claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire, they engage in divergent thinking and is broad rather than narrow, thinker actively searches for information and weighs up more options. Dissenting minorities are valuable as they stimulate new ideas and open minds the way that majorities cannot.
What are the limitations of social change? (Depth)
Deeper processing may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change. Some people are converted as they think more deeply about the minorities view. Mackie disagrees and suggests majority influence is the one creating deeper processing if you do not share their views. This is because we believe people share their views, when a majority believes something else we are forced to think about their reasoning. Central element of minority influence has now been challenged, casting doubt on its validity.
