social influence and social change

social influence and social change

1. social change

   • the special role of minority influence
     • how to create social change - America 1950 -60
       • drawing attention - through social proof
         • civil rights marches drew attention to the segregation
       • consistency
         • many marches with many people
           • showed consistency of message and content
       • deeper processing
         • all the attention meant many people began to question how just it was
       • augmentation principle
         • incidents where people risked their lives
           • freedom riders - sat anywhere on buses
             • many were beaten
       • snowball effect
         • when the government got involved (1964)
           • passed the civil rights act against discrimination
             • this lead to the change from minority to majority
       • social cryptomnesia
         • people have memory that change occurred but don't remember how it happened
           • some people (especially in the south) have no memory of the events happening
   • lessons from conformity research
     • e.g. Asch and the person who didn't agree
     • campaigns e.g. people littering by saying - bin it others do
       • appealing to normative social influence
         • social change encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are doing
   • lessons from obedience research
     • Milgram
       • shows importance of disobedient role models - a teacher who also disagrees
         • rate of obedience dropped
     • Zimbardo
       • obedience can create social change through gradual commitment
         • obey one small instruction - more likely to obey bigger ones

2. evaluation

   • research support for normative influences
     • Nolan - to see whether social influences led to energy reduction
       • California - messages were hung on peoples doors 'other people are trying to reduce their energy consumption'
         • as a baseline others were just told to save energy
           • the group that were told that other people were doing it saved more energy
   • minority influence is only indirectly effective
     • social change happens slowly e.g. for drink driving to be banned
       • Nemeth
         • effects of minority influenced on matters only related to the issue at hand
   • role of deeper processing
     • Moscovici
       • minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes
         • minority - think deeply about an issue
           • how valid is this
     • Mackie
       • thinks majority create deeper thinking
         • we like to think other people share out views
           • when a majority thinks differently we are forced to think about their arguments

3. evaluation +

   • barriers to social change
     • Bashir - why people resist social change when they agree it is necessary
       • people were less likely to behave environmentally friendly because they didn't want to be an environmentalist (minority)
         • so....avoid stereotypes to gain social influence
   • methodological issues
     • social influence leads to social change according to Asch, Milgram, Moscovici
       • these studies have method flaws - how valid are they