Social Influence: social change processes

Question 1

Define social change processes

Answer 1

Social change occurs when a society as a whole adopts new beliefs or behaviours which then become widely accepted as the ‘norm’.

Methods that have been used to bring about social change include: education, persuasion and brute force.

Question 2

Explain social change in terms of the suffragettes

Answer 2

Consistency: They didn’t give up and they stuck to the key message of their cause. They fought from 1903 until women were given the vote in 1918. The key aim of the movement was consistent over time (diachronic consistency)
and between the members of the group (synchronic consistency).

Commitment: A number of women were willing to be imprisoned and put themselves in harms way and/or face social stigma in support of the suffrage movement. This showed great commitment to the cause.

Flexibility: When the war came in 1914 the women temporarily stopped their campaigning so they could help with the war effort. How else did they show flexibility?

Snowball effect: Once change began to happen it accelerated quickly. Gradually the minority view became the majority view.

Social crypto-amnesia: After being successfully persuaded by a minority, people tend to forget where these new views came from. Social cryptomnesia often occurs when a person held negative views of the minority whose views they have come to adopt.

Question 3

Evaluation for social change: research

Answer 3

There is supporting research for the assumptions of minority influence and social change. For example Moscovici’s study can support the ideas of how social change comes about as in Moscovici’s study the consistency condition had a higher percentage of conformity of 8.4% compared to the inconsistent condition of 1.3%.

This implies that consistence from minority groups is an important part of a minority group moving to a majority group. This can therefore explain how minority groups bring about change on the real world.

Question 4

Evaluation for social change: methodological issues

Answer 4

However, there are methodological issues with this research.

For example, many studies supporting the role of social influence processes are conducted as lab experiments using tasks that lack mundane realism. For example, Moscovic used a lab experiment and a colour judging task to study the effect of minority influence on the behaviour of a majority.

This suggests that social influence processes may not bring about social change in the real world in the way research suggests.

Question 5

Evaluation for social change: holistic

Answer 5

One strength with the processes of social change are that they can be viewed as holistic. The theory of processes of social change takes into account a number of factors.

For example, psychological research and theory in this area considers the role of disobedience, non-conformity and minority influence in bringing about social change.

This implies that psychological research and theory in this area can be used to explain social change processes in the real world.

Question 6

Evaluation for social change: applications

Answer 6

One strength is the practical applications of this theory. There are many instances where social change has been brought about through various social influence processes. For example, the LGBT rights movement has brought about a huge amount of social change in the last 50 years through the use of disobedience and minority influence social influence processes in particular.

This means that the explanation has been useful to society because it has brought about real & lasting social change and addressed some of the inequalities experienced by the LGBT community.