social change

• how can social change occur


  through minority influence

  through majority influence (aka conformity)
• how can social change arise through minority influence


  1. drawing attention

  2. cognitive conflict

  3. consistency of position

  4. the augmentation principle

  5. the snowball effect
• how do minorities draw attention


  - they should draw attention to create a conflict which motivates people

  - the suffragettes used educational and political tactics to draw attention
• how does cognitive conflict work


  the minority creates a conflict between what the majority currently beleieves

  - this means that majority members think more deeply about the issues being challenged

  
  

  the suffragettes created a conflict for the majority group members between the existing status of voting

  
  

  some people deal with this conflict by moving towards the position of the minority
• how does consistancy of position work


  research shows that minorities tend to be more influential when they are consistant

  -the suffragettes protests continued for years
• what is the augmentation princicple


  if a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and are taken more seriously
• what is the snowball effect


  minority influence is relatively small initially but then as it spreads, more and more people consider the issue until it reaches a tipping point at which it leads to wide scale change
• how can social change occur though majority influence


  - when people consider something to be the norm, they tend to alter their behaviour to fit the norm aka conforming

  - the gap between the believed norm and the actual norm (their behaviours) is big and leads to social norms interventions
• what are social norms interventions


  Attempts to correct misperceptions of the normative behaviour of peers in an attempt to change the risky behaviour of a target population.

  
  

  by advertising an actual norm, researchers hope that people will moderate their own behaviour to bring it more in line with actual norms
• an example of social norms intervention


  Most of Us dont drink and drive

  
  

  -designed to reduce drinking and driving among young adults in montana usa

  - initial survery said that while only 20% of young adults had reported driven within an hour of drinking, 92% of respondants said that they believed the majority of their peers had done so

  
  

  - the reported drinking and driving then decreased by 13% after the campaign
• positive eval of social change through minority


  deviant minority problems can be overcome, for example the communist manifesto

  - to avoid being seen as deviants, early communists eg karl marx made it clear in the manifesto that they were really part of the majority (working class) and they were against the bourgeoise

  - this meant they were able to stand as equals to the majority and create the impression that they have the ability to overthrow the majority and make social change
• negative eval of social change through minority


  its very gradual

  - the role it plays may be very limited because minorities bring around change slowly

  - this is because of the strong tendancy to conform to the majority so they are less likely to engage in social change

  - suggests that the influence of a minority is often more latent than direct (it creates the potential for change)

  
  

  being percieved as 'deviant' limits the influence of minorities

  - members of the majority may avoid aligning themselves with the minority because they also do not want to appear deviant

  - this leads to the focus of the message being on the fact that it has come from a deviant minority rather than the message itself
• negative eval of social change through majority

  the social norms approach doesnt always work

  - Dejong et al tested the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alchohol use among students in 14 diff colleges

  - despite recieveing normative info that should correct their misperceptions, students did not report lower alchohol consumption as a result

  - they dont always bring around change

  
  

  the boomerang effect
• what is the boomerang effect


  a problem with social norms interventions where individuals whose behaviours are more desirable than the norm will also recieve the message and move towards the norm

  
  

  -eg they already drink less than the norm so may increase how much they drink to move towards the norm
• who came up with the boomerang effect


  shultz et al