Social influence

• Minority groups play an important role in facilitating social change by influencing an entire society to change its attitude, behaviours and beliefs
• Social change


  The ways in which a society (rather than an individual) develops over time to replace beliefs, attitudes and behaviour with new norms and expectations
• Examples of individuals challenging and questioning the values and norms of society


  • Martin Luther King
  • Nelson Mandela
  • Rosa Parks
• Rosa Parks' arrest for violating US law helped trigger the civil rights movement to end racial segregation laws in America
• The suffragettes were consistent in their view and persistently used educational and political arguments to draw attention to female rights
• Processes that can explain social change

  • Consistency
  • Deeper processing
  • Drawing attention
  • The Augmentation Principle
  • The Snowball Effect
  • Social Cryptoamnesia
  • Normative Social Influence
  • Gradual Commitment
• Minority influence can act as a barrier to social change


  Minority groups may live up to stereotypes which can be off-putting for outsiders
• Normative social influence can lead to positive social change


  Indicating that most other residents in the neighbourhood were already reducing energy consumption led to significant reduction in energy usage
• Minority influence and majority influence may involve different levels of cognitive processing

  Moscovici believes minority viewpoint forces deeper thinking, but Mackie suggests majority viewpoint forces deeper thinking
• Methodological issues may undermine the links drawn between social influence processes and social change
• Reports of social change within society can involve concepts that have not been, or cannot be, tested empirically, which means they lack scientific credibility
• Many of the research studies providing an explanation for social change, such as those conducted by Asch, Milgram and Moscovici, can themselves be criticised for issues in their methodology ranging from low generalisability to demand characteristics
• There are doubts about the validity of some of the processes involved in social influence and social change due to the research informing the theories
• Idiographic approach


  There is a large amount of subjective interpretation involved in explaining the occurrences of social norms being superseded in society
• Nomothetic approach


  Researchers have each created universal laws to explain human behaviour under certain social circumstances
• Ecological validity


  Many examples of social change come from real-world, naturalistic incidences that have not been manipulated experimentally
• Social change relating to smoking

  1. Legitimate authority (the law)

  2. Consistent minority

  3. Snowball effect
• Social influence research


  Can influence how campaigns to persuade people to eat healthy meals are structured
• Social influence research


  Can affect the economy by saving money for the NHS as fewer people will need treatment for food/obesity related illnesses and employers will benefit by having their staff take less time off work
• Minority bringing about social change

  • Consistent
  • Committed
  • Flexible
• Minority viewpoint of the importance of recycling becoming widely accepted

  1. Consistency

  2. Commitment

  3. Flexibility

  4. Snowball effect

  5. Social cryptoamnesia
• In the UK, views on homosexuality have changed significantly over time, when until the 1960s it was a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment
• Thirty years ago, almost 65% of the British public were against same sex relationships thinking they were morally inappropriate
• Today, homosexuality is widely recognised and accepted with the majority of British people supporting new changes to the law on both gay marriage and adoption by same sex parents
• How social influence can lead to social change

  1. Consistency

  2. Commitment

  3. Flexibility

  4. Minority challenging majority view

  5. Conformity (informational social influence)

  6. Obedience factors
• Social influence research helps us to understand social change
• Social influence processes play a role in social change