Social Influence Process in Social Change

• What is Minority Influence

  Where a small number of people reject the established views of the majority.
• What are the processes of Social Influences Processes?

  1. Attention
  2. Consistency
  3. Commitment ---> Argumentation Principle
  4. Argumentation Principle
  5. The Snowball Effect
  6. Social Cryptomnesia
• What do Minority Influence at the Attention Phase of Social Influence Process? 


  How minority draw attention to their opinion and ideas.
• What do Minority Influence at the Consistency Phase of Social Influence Process?

  Minorities being more influential when they express their arguments consistently over time - Leads to them being taken more seriously.
• What do Minority Influence at the Commitment Phase of Social Influence Process?

  Minority show that they do not plan to change their views by engaging in extreme activities to draw attention to their cause
• What do Minority Influence at the Snowball Effect Phase of Social Influence Process?

  When majority start to shift their opinion and accept the views of minority, the majority of people start to increase and express the views of minority.
• What do Minority Influence at the Social Cryptomnesia Phase of Social Influence Process?

  To make it easier to accept the minority view sometimes majority forget the where original idea came from.
• Application to Theory in REAL LIFE

  CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTS

  1950s there was black segregation.

  • Consistency - They were minority, but they were consistent and there was many people taking part.
  • The attention meant that people began thinking of the unjustness.
  • Argumentation Principle: Several people risked their life for this change
  • Snowbell effect is exemplified by activist such as Martin Luther King who continued to seek for changes till it attention of the US government.
  • Social Cryptomnesia is when people have the memory of the change happening but forget how it happened
• EVALUATION of SOCIAL PROCESS IN SOCIAL CHANGE?

  NEMETH

  Argues that minority influence is not directly effective because social change will be very slow and rare when it happens.

  • Even when it happens it takes quite a while for it to have much of an influence.

  This weaken the explanation to social change as it states that minority may not actually always be influential suggesting that it is a limited explanation.
• Research Support - Moscovici 


  ROLE of DEEPER PROCESSING

  32% of participants confirmed to minority position at least once.

  • Moscovici believed that minority influence did cause some people to think deeply about an issue than majority.