social influence and social change

social change
1. the special role of minority influence
  1. how to create social change - America 1950 -60
    1. drawing attention - through social proof
      1. civil rights marches drew attention to the segregation
    2. consistency
      1. many marches with many people
        showed consistency of message and content
    3. deeper processing
      1. all the attention meant many people began to question how just it was
    4. augmentation principle
      1. incidents where people risked their lives
        freedom riders - sat anywhere on buses
        many were beaten
    5. snowball effect
      1. when the government got involved (1964)
        passed the civil rights act against discrimination
        this lead to the change from minority to majority
    6. social cryptomnesia
      1. 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
2. lessons from conformity research
  1. e.g. Asch and the person who didn't agree
  2. campaigns e.g. people littering by saying - bin it others do
    1. appealing to normative social influence
      1. social change encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are doing
3. lessons from obedience research
  1. Milgram
    1. shows importance of disobedient role models - a teacher who also disagrees
      1. rate of obedience dropped
  2. Zimbardo
    1. obedience can create social change through gradual commitment
      1. obey one small instruction - more likely to obey bigger ones
evaluation
1. research support for normative influences
  1. Nolan - to see whether social influences led to energy reduction
    1. California - messages were hung on peoples doors 'other people are trying to reduce their energy consumption'
      1. as a baseline others were just told to save energy
        the group that were told that other people were doing it saved more energy
2. minority influence is only indirectly effective
  1. social change happens slowly e.g. for drink driving to be banned
    1. Nemeth
      1. effects of minority influenced on matters only related to the issue at hand
3. role of deeper processing
  1. Moscovici
    1. minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes
      1. minority - think deeply about an issue
        how valid is this
  2. Mackie
    1. thinks majority create deeper thinking
      1. we like to think other people share out views
        when a majority thinks differently we are forced to think about their arguments
evaluation +
1. barriers to social change
  1. Bashir - why people resist social change when they agree it is necessary
    1. people were less likely to behave environmentally friendly because they didn't want to be an environmentalist (minority)
      1. so....avoid stereotypes to gain social influence
2. methodological issues
  1. social influence leads to social change according to Asch, Milgram, Moscovici
    1. these studies have method flaws - how valid are they

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social influence and social change

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	Created by Daisy U about 8 years ago