Social change

• Social change occurs when the minority group or individual converts the opinions, views and beliefs of the majority.
• An example of this is Rosa Parcs who sat at the front of the bus when only white people were allowed. Eventually this resulted in the civil rights movement by breaking the laws on racial segregation.
• Social change occurs through 6 processes

  1. Drawing attention
  2. Consistency (synchronic, diachronic)
  3. Deeper processing
  4. Augmentation Principle
  5. Snowball effect
  6. Sociocryptoamnesia
• Drawing attention does exactly what it says and an example can include placing displeasuring photos on cigarrette packets.
• Consistency is the idea that your same views are conveyed and this is either synchronic, meaning in a group, or diachronic, meaaning over time.
• Deeper processing is where the majority begin to think deeply about the minority's viewpoints. This results in the internalisation of the minority view.
• Augmentation principle refers to the engaging in risky behaviours which show the minority's commitment to their cause.
• The snowball effect is where one person changes their opinion which leads to another changing theirs and so on until there is a large number of people with changed attitudes.
• Sociocryptoamnesia is where the memory of past events is forgotten due to social pressure. An example of this is how many people forget that you used to be able to smoke indoors but now there's a law in place.
• AO3

  :) - Research Support

  Nolan et al hung leaflets on people's doors saying that their neighbourhood were conserving energy.

  In a control group people had different messages hung on their doors with no reference to others' behaviour.

  They found that those who had leaflets referencing other people's behaviour had significant energy usage decreases.

  Shows that conformity through NSI can lead to social change which validates the theory.
• AO3

  :( - Counterpoint to Nolan

  Foxcroft et al reviewed 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to reduce student alcohol consumption.

  They found that there was a limited decrease in consumption.

  Therefore it seems that NSI may not produce long term social change.

  This therefore decreases the validity.
• AO3

  :( - Bashir et al

  Stated that minorities produce controversial viewpoints and the majority may not conform to their view to avoid being associated with stereotypes.

  Therefore this contradicts the idea of social change and provides explanations as to why lots of people often resist social change.