Social Influence L13 Flashcards
1
Q
Social change definition
A
- It is when a whole society changes and adopts new beliefs/ways of behaving, which then become the norm
- It is commonly a result of minority influence (when an individual or small group impacts the majority)
2
Q
What is an example of social change?
A
Attitudes towards homosexuality
- It was an imprisonable offence in the UK until 1967, however public attitudes have now changed and most people now regard being gay as a normal variation of human behaviour
- Laws have since been put into place to protect the rights of gay people & same sex civil partnerships were introduced in 2005, which represents a huge change in society
3
Q
What are the 3 social influence processes involving social change?
A
- Conformity
- Obedience
- Minority influence
4
Q
Describe the social influence process of conformity involving social change
A
- In one variation of Asch’s experiment, we learn that when one confederate gave a different answer to the majority, conformity rates dropped (even if the answer was incorrect)
- Such dissent has the potential to lead to social change
- Environmental and health campaigns exploit conformity processes through NSI (normative social influence - the desire to be liked & fit in)
- They do this by giving information (e.g: ‘ bin it – others do’, suggesting that the majority of society are saving the environment and this is the norm)
- Therefore, social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority is doing, causing people to copy them as they want to fit in
5
Q
Describe the social influence process of obedience involving social change
A
- Milgram’s research showed that when one disobedient person refused to give the electric shock, obedience rates decreased
- Zimbardo (2007) suggested that obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment – once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes more difficult to resist further instructions
- Therefore, social change can happen when one disobedient person can take the correct decision and others will follow
6
Q
Describe the social influence process of minority influence involving social change
A
- Moscovici’s research demonstrated the need to be committed, flexible, and consistent in order to bring about social change
- If you hear something new, then you might think about it, especially if the source is consistent and passionate, and vice versa – this eventually brings about social change
- Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority to the minority (known as the snowball effect)
- Finally, the minority then becomes the majority and social change has occured successfully
7
Q
What are the 6 stages in how minority influence creates social change?
A
- Drawing attention to the issue
- Minorities can bring about social change by drawing the majority’s attention to an issue
————————————— - Consistency of position
- Minority groups are more influential when they express arguments consistently, over time, and with each other
————————————— - Deeper processing
- Other people who are not part of the minority start to pay attention to them by thinking about what the status quo is and perhaps the unjustness of it
————————————— - The augmentation principle
- If a minority is willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and taken more seriously as it will catch the majority’s attention — this supports the minority influence characteristic of commitment
————————————— - The snowball effect
- Minority influence initially has a small effect, but this spreads more widely as more people consider the issue being raised, until it reaches a tipping point where the minority become the majority and there is wide-scale social change
- This is when conformity will occur (either through NSI or ISI) and everyone will follow each other
- Perhaps even laws will be made which people are then bound to follow (obedience to authority)
————————————— - Social cryptoamnesia
- The majority knows that a social change has occurred, but the source of the change and the message itself has become disassociated through the process of social cryptoamnesia, and they don’t recall how it happened
- This could be because it’s the law and we have to obey the law, so we don’t always think about how it came about
8
Q
What is a real-life example that shows the 6 steps of how minority influence creates social change?
A
African-American civil rights movement
9
Q
Explain how the 6 steps, that show how minority influence creates social change, are used in the African-American civil rights movement
A
- Drawing attention
- This was done through social proof — in the 1950s in America, black separation applied to all parts of America
- There were black neighbourhoods and even schools that were exclusive to white people in some areas
- The civil rights marches drew attention to the situation by providing social proof of the problem
————————————————— - Consistency
- There were many marches that lots of people took part in
- Even though they were the minority of the American population, the civil rights activists displayed consistency
————————————————— - Deeper processing
- This attention meant that many people who just accepted the status quo began to think of the unjustness of it
————————————————— - The augmentation principle
- There were many incidents where individuals risked their lives
- E.g: ‘freedom riders’ were mixed racial groups who got on buses in the south to challenge the fact that black people still had to sit separately on buses
- Many ‘freedom riders’ were beaten & there was lots of violence
————————————————— - The snowball effect
- Civil rights activists (such as Martin Luther King) continued to press for changes that gradually got the attention of the US government
- In 1964, the US Civil Rights Act was passed which prohibited discrimination
- This represented a change from minority to majority support for civil rights
————————————————— - Social cryptoamnesia
- People have a memory where change has occurred but cannot remember how it happened
10
Q
What is a strength of social influence processes in social change?
A
- There is research evidence for the role of NSI in bringing about social change
- Nolan (2008) investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in the consumption of energy
- He hung messages on the door of houses in San Diego every week for one month (the key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage)
- A control group had a message not referring to other residents, instead to just save energy
- The group that referred to other residents had shown a decrease in energy usage
- This shows that conformity can lead to social change through NSI as people decreased their energy usage because they thought others were doing so too, so they wanted to fit in
11
Q
What are 2 weaknesses of social influence processes in social change?
A
- Nemeth (1986) argues that the effects of minority influence are likely to be mostly indirect and delayed
- They are indirect because the majority are influenced on only the matters at hand, not the central issues itself
- They are delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time
- It shows that effects of minority influence are fragile & limited
- Therefore, this makes it difficult to test & measure in a scientific setting because social change doesn’t happen straightaway
————————————————— - There may be barriers to social change, as investigated by Bashir et al (2013)
- They found that participants were less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways as they didn’t want to be associated with environmentalists who were stereotyped as ‘tree huggers’
- Therefore, social change can only happen if the minority influence is not associated with negative and extremist stereotypes, which can be difficult to shift
