social influence and social change evaluation Flashcards
what does it mean when we say that there is research support for normative influence
Nolan et al (2008) investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption in a community.
They hung messages on the front of houses in San Diego, California every week for a month
the key message was: “most residents were trying to reduce their energy to save energy
as a control: some residents had a different message that just asked them to save energy but no reference to other people’s behaviour
Nolan et al 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 thee operation of normative social influence
what is a limitation of minority influence
Minority influence is only indirectly effective
Social changes happen slowly when they happen at all e.g. it has taken decades for attitudes against drink - driving and smoking to shift.
This therefore raises the question: do minorities have much of an influence?
Charlan Nemeth (1986) argues that the effects of minority influence are likely to be most indirect and delayed They are indirect because the majority is influenced on matters only related to the issue at hand, and not the central issue itself
They are delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time
This could be seen as a limitation of using minority influence to explain social change because it shows that its effects are fragile and its role in social influence very limited
why is the role of deeper processing a limitation for minority influence
Moscovivi’s conversion explanation of minority influence argues that minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes
That is, minority influence causes individuals to think more deeply about an issue than majority influence (conformity)
Diana Mackie (1987) disagrees and presents evidence that is majority influence that may create deeper processing if you do not share their views. This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think the same ways as us. When we find that a majority believes something different, then we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning
This means that a central process of minority influence has been challenged and may be incorrect, causing doubt on the validity of Moscovici’s theory
what does it mean when we say that there is a “barrier to social change”
Bashir et al (2013) investigated why people so often resist social change, even when they agree that it is necessary
e.g. the researcher found that their participants were less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways because they did not want to be associated stereotypical and minority “environmentalists”.
They rated environmentalists and feminists in negative ways e.g. “tree - huggers, “man - haters”
Therefore researchers advice minorities who want to make a social change to avoids behaving in ways that reinforce stereotypes because this will be off - putting to the majority they want to influence
This supports minority influence ass it shows that minorities can never be influential unless they gain some kind of attention of the majority as it is the majority that holds the power
what does it men when we say that research into social change is based upon methodological errors
explanation of how social influence leads to social change draw heavily upon the studies of Mosccovici, Asch and Milgram
All of these studies can be evaluated in terms of methodology, as we have seen in previous spreads. These criticisms are just applicable here and raise doubts about the validity of the explanation
