social change

• what is social change?

  • when society adopts a new belief or behaviour which then becomes widely accepted as a norm
• what are the 6 social change processes?

  1. drawing Attention
  2. Consistency
  3. Deeper processing
  4. the Augmentation principle - behaviour putting a person at risk makes people think deeper about the issue
  5. Snowball effect
  6. Social cryptoamnesia
• what did Asch's study say about social change processes?

  • when one dissenter (disagreed with majority) the participant also disagreed
• how does NSI affect social change?

  • evironmental and health campaigns often use NSI by exploiting what others are doing so they fit in
• social change strength

  • research support for NSI influences - NOLAN found a reduction in energy consumption when they hung messages on doors stating residents were reducing energy use
  • suggests conformity can lead to social change so NSI as a valid explanatory of social change
• social change limitation

  • FOXCROFT study shows cofnrmoty doesn't always create social change
  • found that there was little reduction in students' alcohol consumption