Social Change

• social change

  the conversion theory - the steps in how minority influence creates social change. a.c.p.a.s.s
• 1)drawing attention to the issue

  minorities bring about social change by drawing majority attention to the issue. If views are different to the majority this created conflict they are motivated to resolve.

  e.g BLM George Floyd news coverage - protests against the police.
• 2) consistency of position

  minorities tend to be more influencial when they express the arguments consistently

  e.g protesters all saying the same message,everyday until change occurs
• 3) deeper processing

  The minority creates a conflict about what they believe an what the majority believe. This doesn't necessarily result in move towards minority position but does make majority think about it more.

  e.g white people begin to consider the message - black people are discriminated against
• 4)the augmentation principle

  if the minority is willing to suffer from their views they are seen as more committed and taken more seriously.

  e.g protesters could be criticised,arrested at the protest
• 5) the snowball effect

  minority influence has a relitively small effect but then this spreads more widely as more people consider it,it then reaches a 'tipping point' when it leads to a wide scale social change.

  e.g racists become minority,anti-racism becomes majority.
• 6) social cryptonesia

  social changes occur,we follow the change,but we cant remember why
• Results of minority influence

  The aim of the minority is to influence the majority until they themselves become the majority, and can then encapsulate the social change into legislation.

  However, often such social change does not occur, because the views of society (the ‘zeitgeist’) are too different from the minority, or because people are too afraid to speak out and to be seen as differing from the

  majority.
• There is research support for role of NSI in social change.Nolan investigated whether majority influence led to a reduction in energy consumption.Researchers hung messages on doors in California,the key message was that other residents were trying to reduce their energy usage.Some houses got a control message telling the to save energy but said nothing about other residents.Findings show significant decrease in energy usage of those who were told other residents were reducing energy consumption showing conformity to a majority group can-social change. certain majorities have large impact on sc
• However, minority influence is only indirectly effective for social

  change to occur Nemeth suggests the effects of minority influence may only be indirect and delayed: indirect because majority is only influenced on matters related to the specific issue (recycling) and not the central issue(global warming). Effects of mi are delayed because the effects may not be seen in society for some time. suggests mi has limited effect in the short-time and social changes caused by them only occur after long periods of time. It only creates potential for sc, not actual sc. m may not have impact on sc
• Furthermore, the nature of deeper processing has been

  questioned The potential for minorities to influence social change is often limited because they are seen as ‘deviant’ in the eyes of the majority. Members of the majority may avoid aligning themselves with the minority position because they don’t want to be seen as deviants

  themselves. The message of the minority would then have very little impact because the focus of the majority’s attention would be the source of the message (i.e. the deviant minority) rather than the message itself. difficult to see that m's have a valid impact on sc.