Obedience: social influence and social change

• Social change refers to significant shifts in societal attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours over time. It often occurs when minorities influence the majority, leading to a change in social norms.
• Social influence is the process by which individuals and groups change each other's attitudes and behaviours. Includes conformity, obedience and minority influence.
• How Social Influence Leads to Social Change:

  1. Drawing Attention to an Issue
  2. Consistency
  3. Deeper Processing
  4. The Augmentation Principle
  5. The Snowball Effect
  6. Social Cryptoamnesia
• Drawing Attention to an Issue

  • Minority groups raise awareness of a social problem, creating cognitive conflict in the majority.
• Consistency

  • Minorities must maintain a consistent message over time to encourage the majority to rethink their views.
• Deeper Processing

  • When exposed to the minority’s views, the majority begins to think more deeply about the issue. This cognitive conflict can lead to internalization of the minority’s perspective.
• The Augmentation Principle

  • When minorities make significant personal sacrifices (e.g., risking arrest or harm), their commitment increases their influence.
• The Snowball Effect

  • Gradually, the minority view gains traction, converting a small number of people at first but eventually reaching a tipping point where it becomes the majority view.
• Social Cryptomnesia

  • Once a change occurs, people often forget how it originated. The new norm becomes accepted without remembering the minority influence that initiated it.
• Normative social influence (NSI) can promote social change by appealing to people’s desire to fit in.

  • Campaigns often use messages like “Most people recycle” to highlight socially desirable behaviours, encouraging conformity to positive social norms.
• Research supports the role of NSI in promoting social change. Perkins and Berkowitz (1986) demonstrated that campaigns using messages like “Most people don’t drink and drive” effectively reduced risky behaviours by appealing to people’s desire to conform. This highlights the practical application of NSI in creating positive social change.