A01 Social Influence & Social Change

• The process of social change 


  • this is the process by which the minority becomes the majority
• The process of social change

  A) ?

  B) ?

  C) ?

  D) ?

  E) ?

  F) ?

  
• Majority Influence


  • Most people disagree with the minority
  • E.G. People do not want women to have votes because they are believed to be inferior
• Minority wants social change


  • Small group want something that the big group does not
  • E.G. Suffragettes want the vote
• Consistent, committed, flexible, etc 


  • To help social change members must be consistent:
  • E.G. Suffragettes stuck to cause for 15 years
  • Must be committed & show it:
  • E.G. Suffragettes did drastic things like hunger strikes, protests/campaigning (stopped campaigning during war period)
  • Must also be flexible - make compromises, to gain support - show they are reasonable:
  • E.G. Married women and women over 30 yrs got the vote
  • AUGMENTATION PRINCIPLE
• Snowballing


  • Eventually more and more people in the majority start to agree with minority - Members of the majority slowly move towards the minority. As it grows in size it picks up momentum so more & more majority members convert to the minority opinion, Eventually the minority becomes the majority.
  • E.G. More women started to listen especially after WW2 and some liberal men also listened
• Social Cryptomnesia:


  • When social change occurs in a society, the attitude or opinion becomes an integral part of the society’s culture & the source of the minority influence that led to it is generally forgotten.
  • Refers to people having a memory that a change happened but not remembering how. Social change came about but some people have no memory of the events leading to that change.
  • E.G. Women got the vote & now can’t recall what it was like before the vote.
• Minority becomes majority:


  • Most people believe what the minority were saying now
  • Deeper processing - attention to cause mean many people who accepted status quo before began thinking about the unjustness of it.
  • E.G. Most people believe women should have the vote.
• Lessons from conformity research


  • Dissenters make social change more likely
  • Aschs research: variation where one confederate always gave correct answers. Broke power of majority encouraging others to dissent. This demonstrates potential for social change.
  • Majority influence and NSI (normative social influence)
  • Environmental & health campaigns exploit conformity by appealing to the NSI. They provide info about what others are doing e.g. reducing litter by printing normative messages on bins ('Bin it - others do'). Social change is encouraged by drawing attention to majority's behaviour.
• Lessons from obedience research:


  • Disobedient models make change more likely
  • Milgram's research: disobedient models in the variation where a confederate refused to give shocks. The rate of obedience in genuine participants plummeted.
  • Gradual commitment leads to 'drift'
  • Zimbardo (2007): once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one. People 'drift' into a new kind of behaviour.