Social influence and social change

Question 1

What is the process of how the minority creates social change?

Answer 1

1. Drawing attention - Through social proof of an issue to members of the majority
2. Consistency - Maintaining the same view over an extended period of time
3. Deeper processing - Making the majority think more about the issue
4. Augmentation principle - Displaying a risky behaviour draws more attention to the minorities message
5. Snowball effect - The conversion of the majority to the minority, increasing as more people pay attention
6. Social cryptomnesia - People have a memory of change but not how it happened

Question 2

How does social change link to conformity?

Answer 2

• A dissenter can lead to social change which has been reflected by Asch decreasing unanimity and therefore decreasing conformity
• social change can also be done by appealing to NSI and providing information about what others are doing ( putting stickers such as ‘Bin it- others do) which can cause people to conform to behaviour

Question 3

How does social change link to obedience?

Answer 3

• Zimbardo suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through gradual commitment
• Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one
• this causes people to drift to a new kind of behaviour

Question 4

What is a strength of social change? (R)

Answer 4

• There is research support, Jessica Nolan et al aimed to see if they could change people’s energy use habits
• The researchers hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego every week for one month
• The key message was to reduce the energy usage
• As a control, some residents had a different message that had no reference to other peoples behaviour
• There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group compared to the second
• This shows that conformity can lead to social change through NSI

Question 5

What is a strength of minority influence? (C)

Answer 5

• A strength is that psychologists can explain how minority influence brings about social change
• Nemeth claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire.
• When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking. This thinking is broad and explores more options.
• Nemeth argues that divergent thinking leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues

Question 6

What is a limitation of social change?

Answer 6

• One limitation is that deeper processing may not play a role in social change
• Mackie disagrees and presents evidence that it is majority influence that may cause deeper processing if you do not share their views
• This is because we like to believe that others share our views and think the same ways as us. When we find out the majority believes something different, we are forced to think harder about their arguements and reasoning
• This means that a central element of minority influence has been challenged