Social Influence/ change Flashcards
What is social change?
Occurs when IT, or section of society, adopt a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm
What are types of social influence that could lead to social change?
- conformity
- obedience
- minority influence
What is conversion?
When an individual who is exposed to a persuasive argument changes their view to match those of the minority = a prerequisite from minority influence leading to social change
What rages in the conversion process?
- drawing attention to an issue
- cognitive conflict
- Consistency
- Commitment (augmentation principle)
- the Snowball effect
- Social cryptomnesia
What is social cryptomnesia?
where people have a memory that social change has occurred but do not remember how it happened
What is social norms intervention?
An attempt to correct misperceptions of the normative behaviour of peers in order to change the risky behaviour of a target population
What is the strength of social influence/change?
Research support for normative influence (conformity)- the ‘most of us don’t drink and drive’ Payne in Montana demonstrates support for social norms intervention.
Nolan et al. (2008) investigated whether social influence processes lead to a reduction in energy consumption in a community, they hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego every week for a month giving the message that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. Control = message that just ask them to save energy. They found a significant decreases in energy uses in the first group.
counter- Delong et al. (2009) tested the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alcohol use among students across different college sites despite receiving normative information the that corrected misperceptions of subjective drinking norms students in social norms condition didn’t report lower self-reported alcohol consumption as a result of the campaign.
What are the limitations of social influence/change?
Minority influence is only indirectly effective- the role played by minority influence may be limited since minorities rarely bring about social change quickly. As there is a strong tendency for human beings to conform to the majority position, people are more likely to maintain the status quo rather than engage in social change.
E.G, it has taken decades of attitudes against drunk driving and smoking to shift. Therefore, it has been argued that the effect of minority influence creates the potential for change rather than actual social change.
