Social influence and Social change:

• What is social influence?

  Social influence refers to the process by which individuals or groups change the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors of others through direct or indirect means.
• What is social change?

  The transformation of societal norms, values, and structures over time.
• What does ACDCSS stand for?

  1. Attention
  2. Consistency
  3. Deeper processing
  4. Commitment (augmentation principle)
  5. Snowball effect
  6. Social cryptoamnesia
• What is attention?


  Groups draw attention to their situation by providing social proof of their situation
• What is consistency?


  Groups hold on to a consistent message
• What is deeper processing of the issue?

  People begin to think about how unjust/significant/important the issue is
• what is commitment (leading to the augmentation principle)?

  Personal risks are undertaken which indicates a strong belief and reinforces their message
• What is the Snowball effect?

  More and more people back the minority
• What is social Cryptoamnesia?


  People have a memory that change has occured but don't remember how it happened
• Lessons from conformity research:

  • Asch- dissenting peer variation- One confederate who gave the correct answer broke the power of the majority, encouraging others to do so too
  • Normative social influence- campaigns to change social behaviour are more effective when the focus is on the fact that others are already commenting the behaviour
  • Shows that social change is encouraged by drawing attention
• Lessons from obedience research:

  • Milgram clearly demonstrates the importance of disobedient role models. In the variation where a confederate Teacher refuses to give shocks to the learner, the rate of obedience in the genuine participants plummeted.
  • Zimbardo suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment. Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one.