Social Influence - The role of social influence processes in social change

Question 1

What is social change?

Answer 1

The way in which society develops via shifts in people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour.
- Social change gradually with minority influence as the driving force

Question 2

What are the advantages of minority social change?

Answer 2

• Tends to be gradual –>. has less disruptive impact on social order and causes less harm and conflict than more rapid social change
• Slow change –> means new ideas can be tested to check that they are suitable for mainstream society. i.e. Greenpeace began as a small environmental pressure group in the early 70s.
• They are now a legitimate voice of environmental pressure group in the early 70s
• This change from fringe group to majority acceptance took time.

Question 3

Who developed the social impact theory?

Answer 3

Latane and Wolf

Question 4

What does the social impact theory state?

Answer 4

That three factors cause social impact when combined in social measure

Question 5

What are the three factors causing social impact?

Answer 5

People change their behaviour if they are put under enough pressure. This is made up of:

• Immediacy –> how recent or physically close the source of pressure is
• Numbers –> the size of the group applying pressure
• Strength –> how powerful the person/group applying pressure is

Question 6

According to the theory ________ can cause social impact through a different ______ of factors to ______.

Answer 6

minorities , balance, majorities

Question 7

What did Moscovici et al observe?

Answer 7

Consistent and inconsistent behavioural styles on minority influence in a colour study.

Question 8

What was Moscovici et al’s procedure?

Answer 8

Lab experiment

• 192 female participants
• Women split into six with two confederates per group
• One control group with no confederates
• Groups were asked to identify the colour of 36 slides. All were different shades of blue
• -> consistent confederates identified all 36 slides as green
• -> inconsistent confederates identified 12 slides as blue and the other 24 as green

Question 9

What were the results of Moscovici et al’s colour study?

Answer 9

groups with consistent confederates - 32% of natural participants identified at least one slide as green . Around 8% of the time, participants identified slides as green.

groups with inconsistent confederates - around 1% of the time, participants identified slides as green

control group - around 0.25% of the time,participants identified slides as green.

Question 10

What is the conclusion of Moscovici et al’s colour study?

Answer 10

Minority groups had more influence when they behaved consistently rather than inconsistently

Question 11

What is the strength of Moscovici et al’s study?

Answer 11

The control group result - proves that the minority groups had influence

Question 12

What are the weaknesses of Moscovici’s colour study?

Answer 12

Low ecological validity
- participants were in an artificial situation

Low generalisability
- female participants only

Question 13

What happened in the additional experiment when the participants didn’t have to announce the colour aloud , they wrote the colour down?

Answer 13

Even more participants adopted the minority view - this further backs the theory on minority influence.