AO3 social change

• Supporting evidence - researchers investigated whether social influence processes Les to reduction in energy consumption. Hung message on doors in San Diego every week for a month. As a control some residents has different messages to save energy but didn't make a reference to other people's behaviour. There was a significant decrease in energy usage in experimental group. It shows conformity can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence
• Role of deeper processing - researchers argue it is majority influence that creates deeper processing if you do not share their views. This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and that in the same way as us. When we find that a majority believes something different then we are forced to think long and hard about their reasoning. This means that a central element of the process of minority influence has been challenged and may be incorrect which decreases validity of moscovici theory.
• Methodological issues - studies by asch, milgram, moscovici can be evaluated in terms of their methodology because demand characteristics can contribute to PTS judgement, could have figured out aim. These criticisms are just as applicable here and raise doubts about the validity of these explanations of social change.