SOCIAL INFLUENCE & SOCIAL CHANGE

• what is social change?

  when whole societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs & ways of doing things
• how does minority social influence create social change?

  when minorities show consistency, commitment & flexibility in their views
• what are some examples of minority social influence creating social change?

  • drawing attention to & providing social proof of the problem with civil rights marches against segregation in the 1950s
  • members of the minority make personal sacrifices, like risking their lives, to show they're not acting out of self-interest as the 'freedom riders' did
• what is social cryptomnesia?


  when people have a memory that change has occurred but don't remember how it happened
• how does conformity research lead to social change?

  environmental & health campaigns exploit conformity processes by appealing to NSI & providing info about what other people do - social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority is doing
• how does obedience research lead to social change?

  milgram's research showed the importance of disobedient role models - in the variation where the teacher refuses to give shocks to the learner, the rate of obedience in the genuine pts dropped from 65-10%
• how did zimbardo suggest obedience can be used to create social change?

  through a process of gradual commitment- once a small instruction is obeyed it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one
• what is a strength of social influence creating change?

  • P: research has shown normative influence works
  • E: Nolan et al aimed to see if people's energy use habits could be changed so the researcher hung messages on front doors in San Diego every week for a month. the key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. there was a significant decrease in energy us in the residents
  • T: shows that conformity can lead to social change through the use of NSI

  HOWEVER

  • P: some studies show people's behaviour isn't always changed through NSI
  • E: foxcroft found a small reduction in drinking quantity in students & no effects on drinking frequency despite messages to reduce student alcohol use
  • T: therefor NSI doesn't always produce long-term social change
• what is another strength of social influence creating change?

  • P: psychologists can now explain how minority influence brings about social change
  • E: Nemeth claims social change is due to the deep thinking process. when people consider minority arguments they engage in divergent thinking. deeper processing leads to search for more information & he argues this leads to better decisions & more creative solutions to social influence
  • T: shows that dissenting minorities are valuable as they stimulate new ideas & open minds in a way majorities can't
• what a limitation of social influence creating change?

  • P: deeper processing may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change
  • E: mackie argues that majority influence creates deeper processing if you don't share their views & think in the same ways as us. when we find that a majority believes something different, then we're forced to think long & hard about their arguments & reasoning
  • T: means that a central element of minority influence has been challenged, casting doubt ok its validity as an explanation for social change