discuss processes in social change

• introduction

  • adopting new beliefs or behaviours that become widely accepted
  • e.g. minority influence, conformity, obedience
  • Moscovici - consistency, commitment and flexibility
• A01

  Minority Influence

  • challenges majority view e.g. suffragette movement
  • consistency - keep same views overtime to appear confident
  • commitment - extreme actions to show dedication
  • flexibility - negotiate to appear cooperative
  • snowball effect - view gains momentum and more people adopt view
  • social cryptomnesia - forget origin of change and accept new norm
• A01

  Conformity

  • normative and informational social influence
  • normative - fit in with social norms
  • informational - others are more knowledgeable
  • use gradual commitment, expertise and appeal to desire to be liked
• A01

  Obedience

  • enforce new laws and societal expectations e.g. civil rights
  • legitimate authority
  • disobedience e.g. Rosa Parks
• A03

  • research support
  • Moscovici showed consistent minority influenced 32%
  • normative social influence
  • Nolan found campaigns appealing to NSI had significant decrease
  • limited long-term effect
  • process is slow and compliance is short-lived so no long-term societal transformation