Social Change

• Social Change


  Change in nature of social settings, behaviour and relationships within society or a communities.
• There are 8 main methods which can lead to social change:

  • Consistency
  • Deeper processing
  • Drawing attention
  • Augmentation principle
  • Snowball effect
  • Gradual commitment
  • Social cryptoamnesia
  • Normative social influence
• Deeper processing


  the more people think about the issues, the more they process the information and are more likely to convert by challenging social norms.
• Drawing attention (commitment)


  Making the majority aware
• The Augmentation Principle


  When the majority sees the minority participating in selfless and risky actions, they are more likely to convert.
• Snowball Effect


  Once they have the attention of the majority, more and more people start paying attention.
• Social Cryptoamnesia


  Over time, people forget about events that took place in order for things to be the way that they are.
• Methods of Minority Influence: Evaluation Points

  • NSI support
  • NSI contradictory
  • Deeper processing contradictory
  • Real life support: Suffragettez
• Methods of Minority Influence: NSI Support
• Methods of Minority Influence: NSI Support

  Nolan aimed to investigate whether they could change people's energy use habits through normative social influence. For 1 month, researchers hung notices on peoples front doors with the key message being that other people in the neighbourhood were reducing their energy use habits. The control group had messages on their door but with no reference to other people's behaviour. There was a significant decrease in the energy use of the main group compared to the control group. This shows that NSI is an effective method.
• Methods of Minority Influence: NSI Contradictory

  Behaviour of the majority is not always changed by exposure to social norms. Foxcraft conducted a meta-analysis of 70 studies of social norms interventions to reduce student alcohol use. They found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no reduction of drinking frequency. This shows that NSI does not have long-term effects on majority opinion.
• Methods of Minority Influence: Deeper Processing Contradictory


  Mackie disagrees with deeper processing as a minority influence strategy and suggests that it is a strategy of majority influence. Deeper processing is based on the concept that if people have different beliefs, we deeper process it. This only applies to majority influence, as people only pay attention when it is a large group that possesses this contradictory view. This challenges a key element of minority influence leading to social change which questions the validity.
• Methods of Minority Influence: Suffragettes


  The Suffragette movement is a crucial example of how minority influence and catalysts for social change apply to real life situations. Research into how they created such change is similar to Moscovici's findings, supporting minority influence. They used various methods to bring about social change, such as commitment and consistency. Regardless of the consequences, consistency was key which relates to the augmentation principles. This supports the minority influence approach and shows real life application of catalysts for social change.