1.10 Social Influence and Social Change

1.10 Social Influence and Social Change

1. Minority Influence

   • Considering the steps in how minority influence creates social change
     • E.G African American civil rights movement
       • Drawing attenton
         • Civil rights marches drew attention to the situation providing social proof of the problem.
       • Consistency
         • Activists represented a minority of the American population but remained consistent
       • Deeper processing
         • Activism meant that many people began to think deeply of the lack of justice
       • Augmentation principle
         • Personal risk showed the strong belief and reinforced the message
       • Snowball effect
         • More and more people backed the cause when Martin Luther King got the attention of the government.
       • Social cryptomnesia
         • People have no memory of the events that led to the change.

2. Conformity

   • Asch highlighted the importance of the dissent in one of his variations. Breaking the power of the majority encourages others to do likewise.
     • Potential for social change
   • Exploiting processes appealing to NSI.
     • Providing information about what others are doing, draws attention to the majority so others will want to follow.

3. Obedience

   • Milgrams research
     • Demonstrates the role of a disobedient model, showing that rates of obedience fell in the presence of a confederate teacher
   • Zimbardo (2007)
     • Suggested obedience can be used to create social change, through gradual commitment.
       • Once a small instruction is obeyed, becomes more difficult to disobey a larger one, essentially people drift to a new kind of behaviour

4. Evaluation

   • Strengths
     • Research support of NSI
       • Nolan et al (2008) aimed to see if they could change peoples energy-use habits. Hung messages on doors in San Diego which said that most residents were reducing energy usage. Led to significant decrease.
     • Minority influence explains change
       • Nemeth claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. The type of thinking is more broad, called divergent thinking where the thinker actively searches for information. He argues that this leads to better decisions.
         • Minority influence stimulates new minds and brings about new ideas, opening minds in a way majorities cannot.
   • Weaknesses
     • Behaviour not always changed through NSI.
       • Foxcroft et al (2015) reviewed social norms interventions used to reduce student alcohol use. The researchers found a small reduction in drinking quantity but no effect in drinking frequency.
     • Role of deeper processing
       • Diane Mackie (1987) says that majority influence causes deeper thinking if you dont share their views. This is because we believe that other people share our views and when it is found that a majority believes in something we dont, it causes us to think.