A03

• What are the strengths of social influence and social change?

  1. Research support for normative influences

  • C.A. - DeJong et al. (2009)
• What are the limitations of social influence and social change?

  1. Indirect effectiveness
  2. ‘Deviant’ perception limits influence

  • C.A. - can be avoided
• Strength = research support for normative influences

  • The ‘MOST of Us Don’t Drink and Drive‘ campaign in Montana demonstrates support for social norms intervention
  • Nolan et al. (2008) investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in the energy consumption in a community
  • Hung messages on front doors in San Diego every week for a month giving the message that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage
  • Control group message just asked them to save energy
  • Found significant decreases in energy usage in first group
• Limitation = indirect effectiveness

  • Power of minority influence may be limited since minorities rarely bring about social change quickly
  • As there is a strong tendency for humans to conform to the majority position, people are likely to maintain the status quo rather than engage in social change
  • E.g. it has taken decades for attitudes against drunk driving and smoking to shift
  • Therefore, it has been argued that effects of minority influence creates the potential for change rather than actual social change
• Limitation = deviant perceptions limits influence

  • Potential for minorities to influence social change is often limited because are seen as deviant
  • Majority may avoid aligning themselves with them as they don‘t want to be seen as deviant themselves
  • This limits impact of minority because focus of majority’s attention would be the source of the message (deviant minority) rather than the message itself
  • E.g. people are less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways as they don’t want to be associated with minority ‘environmentalists‘ as they are often referred to as ‘tree huggers’
• C.A. for research support for normative influence

  • DeJong et al. (2009) tested the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alcohol use among students across different college sites
  • Despite receiving normative information that corrected their misperceptions of subjective drinking norms, students in the social norms condition didn’t report lower self-reported alcohol consumption as a result of the campaign
• C.A. for ‘deviant’ perceptions limits influences

  • Minorities can overcome this by avoiding coming across as deviants when portraying their message
  • E.g. the birth of communism
  • To avoid being portrayed as deviants, early communists made it clear in their Communist Manifesto that they were really part of the majority (working class)
  • They were able to stand as equals to the majority, creating the impression that they had the potential to overthrow the powerful majority and create social change