social influence - social change Flashcards
what is meant by social change
if an individual is exposed to a persuasive argument under certain conditions they may change their views to match those of the minority
how can minority influence create social change
- drawing attention to the issue
- consistency of position: displaying an unswerving message and intent
- deeper processing: people who accept the belief deep it further
- the argumentation principle: minorities take risk to further the cause
- the snowball effect: people switch from a majority position to a minority one
- social cryptomnesia: people have a memory that change has occured but some people have no memory of events that led to change
what is conformity research into social change
- asch demonstrated that when one confederate gave the same answer, it broke the power of the majority allowing others to dissent, demonstrating the potential for social change
- health compaigners exploit conformity by appealing to normative social influence, providing information about what others are doing. social change is encouraged by drawing attention to the majoritys behaviour
what is the obedience research into social change
- milgrams research demonstrated the important of disobedient role models. when one confederate refused to give shocks, the rate of obedience in genuine participants dropped significantly
- zimbardo suggested how obedience can be used to create social change - once one commitment has been made it is more difficult to resist a bigger one - people “drift” into a new behaviour
what are the strengths of social change
nolan investigated whether majority influence led to the reduction in energy consumption in a community. they hung messages on front doors where the key message was that most residents were trying to reduce energy consumption. as a control, some residents had a different message that asked them to save energy without making a reference to other peoples behaviour. findings showed significant decreases in energy usage in the group that were exposed to the normative message - this shows how conforming to a majority group can lead to social change
what are the weaknesses of social change
- nemeth suggested that the effects of minority influence may be indirect ( because the majority is only influenced on matters specific to the issue and not the issue itself ) and delayed ( because the effects may not be seen in society for some time ). minority influence only creates a potential for social change rather than actual social change
- minorities can never be influential until they can attract the attention of the majority. if they find the minority too off putting they will never be in position to consider its message, a crucial first step in the process of minority influence
- explanations based on social influence research is limited in what it can tell us about social change due to methodological issues. for example trivial tasks are used in some studies do not reflect real life situations of social influence
