processes in social change

• As a minority, it may be hard to influence the majority with an argument, however, in certain conditions, views may be changed to those in a minority. Drawing attention to an issue can help social change by drawing attention to the issue, when views are different to the majority, a conflict is created which they are motivated to reduce. Cognitive conflict can also be used after the first, which allows the majority to think more deeply about the view that has been put forwards.
• Consistency of position is a very important variable as the minority must stay consistent with their view and has seen to be more influential than when the view is not consistently held. For example, the suffragettes were consistent for years and eventually made social change happen. The augmentation principle is an idea to show the majority that they are willing to suffer for their views. This happened a lot in the suffragette movement where many cause themselves harm and even gave their life for this view. This helps them to be taken more seriously and show more commitment to their view.
• The snowball effect happens over time where the influence initially has a small effect but then spreads until ‘tipping-point’ social change. Social change is also available through majority change, for example ‘most of us don’t drink and drive’. Aimed at 21-34 year olds in USA. 20.4% in a survey reported having driven after consuming alcohol. They reported that 92% that their peers had done so, however. 'most of us don’t drink and drive' was put out to correct the misperception and the reported drinking then driving rater was reduced by 13.7% compared to countries that didn’t run the study.
• The role played by minority influence however is said to be very gradual and limited since minorities, like the suffragettes, don’t bring around social change quickly.

  Because there is a strong tendency for human beings to conform to the majority position, people are more likely to maintain the most popular opinion, rather than engage in social change.

  This suggests therefore, that influence of a minority is frequently more latent than direct as it creates the potential for social change, rather than actual social change.
• Another problem is that minorities are usually seen as ‘deviant’ in the eyes of majorities.

  Members of the majority may avoid aligning themselves with the minority as they don’t wasn’t to be seen as deviant themselves. The message of the majority would then have very little impact as the majority’s attention will be on where the view came from rather than the message itself.

  Therefore, minorities face double the challenge when trying to bring about social change as they are trying not to be seen as deviant and try and get people to go against the majority and change their views/beliefs.
• Social norm interventions have shown positive results in a number of different settings, such as reducing drink driving, but they do have limitations.

  DeJong 2009 tested the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alcohol use across 14 different college sites. Despite normative info the corrected the misinterpretation, students in the social norms condition did not report lower self-reported alcohol consumption as a result of the campaign.

  It appears therefore, that not all social norms interventions are able to produce social change.

   
• It was found that an unwelcome problem with social norm interventions allowed people who had more desirable behaviour also receives the message and changes due to this.

  For those individuals who already engage in the constructive behaviour being advocated (eg drinks less), a normative message can also be a spur to increasing these aspects of behaviour to be more in line with the norm (not what the message was intended to do). This is the boomerang effect, where a social norm can eg make people reduce how much they drink, but also can have the opposite effect.