Social Influence Processes in Social Change Flashcards
What are the five stages of social change
- Minority draws attention to an issue
- Cognitive Conflict
- Consistency of position
- The augmentation principle
- The Snowball Effect
What happens when a minority draws attention to an issue
It creates a conflict that the majority are motivated to reduce
What is cognitive conflict
A minority creates conflict with what the majority group members currently believe, and therefore the majority members are forced to think more deeply about the issues being challenged. Some people will deal with this conflict by moving towards the position advocated by the minority, while others will simply dismiss it
Why do minorities need consistency of opinion
In order to keep their idea around for a long time so that their ideas can’t simply be dismissed
What is the augmentation principle
The minority must be willing to suffer for their principles so that their ideas are taken seriously
What is the snowball effect
The minorities view starts off relatively small, but as it spreads is adopted more widely until it reaches a tipping point, at which point it leads to wide scale social change
How can the majority influence create social change (not mackie)
Through conformity. If people percieve something to be the norm they will change their behaviour to fit that norm, and therefore behaviour is based on what people think others do rather than the reality of their actions. The gap between percieved and actual action is called a ‘misperception’ and correcting this is the basis of social norms interventions. These aim to change behaviour by addressing a widespread ‘misperception’
Why may minority influence actually have little effect
Minorities are often percieved as deviants, so people avoid alinging with them. Therfore minorities have little influence as people only focus on the source of the message. Some overcome this issue, like the communists, who put in their manifesto that they were part of the working class majority
What is the ‘boomerang effect’ in social influence
Schultz et al suggested that social influence messaging is often aimed at those who’s behaviour is undesirable, but the message may also affect those who’s behaviour is better than the average, and drag them down. Thus social norms intervention may be self defeating
What is social norms intervention
The use of social norms to create social change through messages addressing misperceptions
How do social norms interventions usually work
They identify a widespread misperception relating to a specified risk behaviour within a target population, for example young people often justify their own alcohol consumption based on misperceptions on the quantity consumed by their peers. Perception correction straetgies like media campaigns are then used to communicate to the target population what the actual norm is concering a particular behaviour
What is an example of a social norms intervention
The ‘Most of Us don’t drink and drive’ campaign in Montana, where 20% of young adults had driven within an hour of consuming alcohol, and 92% of respondents believed the majority of their peers had done so. After running the campaign correcting this misperception, drink driving was down 13.7%
Who suggested that social norms intervention was self-defeating
Schultz et al
