Social Influence and social change Flashcards
What is the first stage of social change?
Drawing attention – Highlighting a social issue to make people aware of it.
What is consistency in social change?
Consistency – Minority groups maintain their stance over time to increase influence.
What is deeper processing?
Deeper processing – The majority begins to seriously think about the issue and question the status quo.
What is the augmentation principle?
Augmentation principle – When minority members put themselves at risk or make sacrifices for their cause, their views seem more committed and are taken more seriously.
What is the snowball effect?
Snowball effect – As more people adopt the minority view, it gains momentum until it becomes the majority.
What is social cryptomnesia?
Social cryptomnesia – People remember that change has occurred but forget how it happened or who originally advocated for it.
How do dissenters make social change more likely?
Asch’s research showed that if one person consistently resists conformity, others are encouraged to do the same, breaking the majority’s power.
How does NSI contribute to social change?
Campaigns use Normative Social Influence (NSI) to show people what others are doing, e.g., anti-littering messages like “Bin it – others do.”
How do disobedient models encourage social change?
In Milgram’s study, when a confederate refused to give shocks, obedience rates among real participants dropped significantly.
What does Zimbardo’s (2007) idea of gradual commitment suggest?
People can ‘drift’ into new behavior—once they obey a small request, it becomes harder to resist larger ones.
strength (1) of social influence and social change
One strength is support for normative influence in social change.
Nolan et al. (2008) hung messages on front doors of houses. The key message was most residents are trying to reduce energy usage.
Significant decreases in energy use compared to control group who saw messages to save energy with no reference to other people’s behaviour.
This shows conformity can lead to social change through the operation of NSI.
strength (2) of social influence and social change
Another strength is that minority influence explains social change.
Nemeth (2009) says that minority arguments cause people to engage in divergent thinking (broad, active information search, more options).
This thinking leads to better decisions and creative solutions to social problems.
This shows that minorities are valuable because they stimulate new ideas and open people’s minds.
limitation of social influence and social change
A limitation is deeper processing may apply to majority influence.
Mackie (1987) disagrees with the view that minority influence causes individuals in the majority to think deeply about an issue.
Majority influence creates deeper processing because we believe others think as we do. When a majority thinks differently, this creates pressure to think about their views.
Therefore a central element of minority influence has been challenged, casting doubt on its validity as an explanation of social change.
