social change

• Social change – when a society adopts a new way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm.
• CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR SOCIAL CHANGE BY MINORITY:

  1.     Drawing attention to the issue – exposing the views of the minority to others.

  2.     Cognitive conflict – we think more deeply about the minorities argument

  3.     Consistency – minorities are more influential to social change when they’re consistent

  4.     The augmentation principle – if there are risks in putting forward an argument then those who express such views are taken more seriously.

  5.     Snowball effect – initially has a small effect but this then spreads more widely
• MINORITY INFLUENCE

  If people perceive something to be the norm, they change their own actions to fit into the norm (normative social influence)

  Behaviour is based on what you think others believe and do than on their actual beliefs and actions.

  The gap between the perceived norm and the actual norm is a misperception  - correcting the misperception is the basis for an approach to social change called social norms interventions.
• DRAWING ATTENTION TO AN ISSUE

  Minorities might begin the process of social change by drawing the majority’s attention to an issue. If views expressed by the minority are different to the majority, this creates a conflict that they are motivated to reduce.
• CONSISTENCY

  Minorities are more likely to achieve social change if they’re consistent. This leads to the majority to doubt themselves which can lead to behaviour changes.
• THE SNOWBALL EFFECT

  Minority influence initially has a relatively small effect but this then continues to grow as more people in society consider the issues being promoted until it leads to a wide-scale social change.
• STRENGTHS OF THE ROLE OF MINORITY INFLUENCE IN SOCIAL CHANGE

  ·       Support for the role of consistency in social change comes from Moscovici (1969) who found when a minority of confederates consistently said blue slides were green they had a larger influence over the majority group of participants than when the confederates were inconsistent. This is positive as it suggests minorities in society have more chance of social change when they are consistent.
• WEAKNESSES OF THE ROLE OF MINORITY INFLUENCE IN SOCIAL CHANGE

  ·       Often quite slow. The influence of a minority creates the potential for change rather than direct change
• WEAKNESSES OF THE ROLE OF MINORITY INFLUENCE IN SOCIAL CHANGE

  ·       Minority groups will appear as deviant therefore the majorities will avoid them.
• Majority influence can play a key role in social change because many of the attitudes and behaviours of individuals in society are shaped by what they perceive to be social norms.

  The NSI explanation of conformity suggests that we will often change our behaviour out of a desire to be liked and accepted by the majority to gain social approval.

  If individuals in society are led to believe that the majority are behaving differently to the way they behave, they may change their behaviour to avoid being seen as socially deviant.
• STRENGTHS OF THE ROLE OF CONFORMITY IN SOCIAL CHANGE

  ·       Support comes from Nolan (2008) who hung messages on front doors of houses in San Diego every week for a month, saying most residents were trying to reduce their energy consumption. A control group were asked to save energy but did not refer to other people’s behaviour. They found significant decreases in energy usage in the first group. This supports the view conformity can lead to social change through the use of NSI.