Social influence and social change

• what is the difference between social influence and social change?


  Social influence is the process by which individuals and groups change each other's attitiudes and behaviours whereas social change occurs when whole societies rather than individuals adopt new attitiudes, beliefs and behaviours.
• give an example, with steps, of social influence leading to change


  African-American civil rights movement of 1950-60s - drew attention to segregation, providing social proof of the problem -> remained consistent with their views, (marches over years). Activism meant people began to think deeply about the injustice. People risked their lives several times, creating a strong belief and augmenting their message. Activists gained attention of the gov., and more people backed their position. Social change came about, but some have mo memory of events that lead to it.
• what are the steps that create social change from social influence?


  1-drawing attention through social proof

  2-consistency

  3-deeper processing of the issue

  4-the augmentation principle

  5-the snowball effect

  6-social cryptomnesia (people have a memory that change occured but don't remember how it happened)
• what are lessons from conformity research?


  Asch's experiement highlighted the importance of dissent, which has the potential to lead to social change.

  A different approach is appealing to normative social influence by drawing attention to what the majority is doing. This is used in campaigns by printing normative messages such as 'bin it - others do' to reduce litter.
• what are lessons from obedience research?


  Milgram's research demonstrates the importance of disobedient role models.

  Zimbardo suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment - once a small instruction is obeyed, it become more difficult to resist a bigger one
• give research support for normative influences 


  Research shows that social influence processes based on psychological research do work. Nolan et al. aimed to see if they could change people's energy use habits by hanging sign out on doors that referenced other people's behaviour in some neighbourhoods (others had signs that just asked to save energy). There were significant decreases of energy use in the first group than the second. This shows that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence - it is a valid explanation.
• give a counterpoint for normative influences. 


  Some studies show that people's behaviour isn't always changed through exposure to social norms. Foxcroft et al. reviewed social norm interventions as part of the 'gold standard' Cochrane Collaboration. It included 70 studies where social norms were used to reduce alcohol use. They found a small reduction is drinking quantity and no effect on dirnking frequency. Therefore it seems that using normative influence does not always produce long-term social change.
• How does minority influence explain change?


  Nemeth claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. When considering minority arguments, people engage in divergent thinking, which is broad rather than narrow, in which the thinker actively searches for information and weighs up more options. Nemeth argues this leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues. This shows dissenting minorities are valuable as they stimulate new ideas and open minds in ways majorities cannot.
• what is a limitation of the role of deeper processing?


  It may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change. Mackie argues that majority influence can create deeper processing if you do not share their views. This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same way as us. When we find that a majority thinks something different we are forced to think long and hard about their arguements and reasoning. This means that a central element of minority influence has been challenged, reducing its validity as an explanation of social change.
• what is a barrier to social change? 


  Bashir et al. argues people still resist social change. Bashir found that their participants were less likely to behave in an environmentally friendly way because they did not want to be associated with stereotypical and minority environmentalists, who they described in negative ways.