Social Influence and Social Change

• How Minority Social Influence creates a Social Change

  Drawing Attention

  Consistency

  Deeper Processing

  The Augmentation Principle

  The Snowball Effect

  Social Cryptomnesia (people have memory the change has occurred, but don't remember how it happened).
• Lessons from Conformity Research

  Asch highlighted the importance of dissent, where one participant breaks the power of the majority- which encourages others to do the same. Such dissent has the possibility to ultimately lead to social change.
• Lessons from Conformity Research

  A different approach is taken by environmental and health campaigns who appeal to Normative Social Influence- providing normative messages on their litter bins ('Bin it- other do'), and preventing them from smoking ('Most other young people don't smoke'). Social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are doing.
• Lessons from Obedience Research

  Milgram's research clearly demonstrates the importance of disobedient role models. Teacher refuses to give a shock to the Learner, the rate in obedience in the genuine participant decreased. Zimbardo suggested obedience obedience can be used to make social change through the process of gradual commitment- once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes more difficult to resist another. Making people drift into new kinds of behaviour.
• AO3: The Role of Deeper Processing

  Mackie argues that the majority influence may create deeper processing if you don't align with their views. We like to believe that other people share our same views. When the majority believes differently, we are forced to think about their reasoning more deeply- this then means the central element of minority influence is challenged.
• AO3: Barriers to Social Change

  Bashir et al claims that people will resist social change. Finding p's were less likely to behave in an environmentally-friendly way as they didn't want to be associated with stereotypical and minority 'environmentalists'. They described them in negative ways; 'Tree Huggers'. Despite this resistance, researchers still suggest ways which minorities can overcome barriers to social change.
• AO3: Minority Influence explains Change

  Nemeth claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking- broad rather than narrow. The thinker actively searches for information and ways up more options. They argue this leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues. Showing why dissenting minorities are so valuable- they stimulate new ideas and open minds in ways the majority can't.
• AO3: Research Support for Normative Influence

  Nolan et al aimed to see if they could change people's energy-use habits, researchers placed messages in the doors of Californian residents every week for a month. The key message was that most of the other residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. As a control, some residents had a message which made no reference to others behaviour. There was a significant decrease in energy usage in the experimental group. Showing NSI is a valid explanation.
• AO3: Normative Influence not altering behaviour

  Foxcroft et al reviewed social norm interventions; reviewing 70 studies where it was used to reduce student alcohol use. Researchers found only a small reduction in drinking quantity, and no change to drinking frequency- therefore NSI doesn't always produce long-term social change.