social influence and social change

• what is social influence

  the process in which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours
• what is social change

  occurs when whole societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things
• steps of social change

  drawing attention

  consistency

  deeper processing

  augmentation principle

  snowball effect

  social cryptomnesia
• what does drawing attention include

  drawing attention to inequalites through social proof

  e.g. civil right marches
• what does consistency include

  maintaining a consistent message by showing commitment

  e.g. civil right activists represented a minority remained consistent
• what does deeper processing include

  causes people who accepted the status quo began to think deeply about the injustice
• what is the augmentation principle

  if a person performs an action when there are known constraints, their motive for acting must be stronger

  individuals risked their lives for a cause

  e.g. freedom riders boarded buses and risked being beaten
• what doe the snowball effect include

  the minority becomes increasingly supported and gradually moves to be the majority

  e.g. Martin Luther king gradually got attention of the us government
• what is social cryptomnesia

  people have a memory that change has occurred but don't remember how it happened
• strengths of social change

  research support (Nolan et al)

  minority influence explains change (Nemeth)
• research of Nolan et al (2008)

  aimed to see if they could change people's energy-use habits

  hung messages on doors of houses in California every week for a month

  the key message was that residents were trying to reduce energy usage

  control= some residents had a message that just asked them to save energy
• findings of Nolan et al

  siginifacnr decreases in energy usage

  shows conformity(majority influence) can lead to social change through operation of NSI
• research of Nemeth 2009

  claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire

  when considering minority arguments people engage in divergent thinking

  this is a broad way of thinking

  Nemeth argues this leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues
• limitations of social change

  not long term change (Foxcroft et al)

  role of deeper processing (Mackie)
• Foxcroft et al (2015) research

  reviewed social norms interventions as part of the 'golf standard'

  included 70 studies where the social norm approach was used to reduce student alcohol use

  found only a small reduction in drinking and no effect on drinking frequency

  concludes that NSI social change is not always long term
• Mackie (1978) research

  presents evidence that minority influence may create deeper processing if you do not share their views

  because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same way

  when we find out the majority believes something else we are forced to think about their arguments