Social Influence processes in social change

Social Influence processes in social change

1. Processes

   • Drawing attention to an issue
   • Creating conflict - create conflict in the minds of the majority of what they believe & what the minorities believe
   • consistent with each other & over time
   • The augmentation principle - minority willing to suffer for their views, taken more seriously
   • snowball effect - minority influence initially has a small effect but this spreads more widely until eventually leads to large scale social change

2. e.g. sufragettes

   • used educational, political & military tactics to draw attention
   • created conflict between existing status quo & their position
   • consistent in views despite other attitudes, protests & political lobbying went on for years
   • willing to risk imprisonment & even death, their influence was augmented & more powerful
   • sever years after the suffragettes actions women were permitted to vote, the idea had finally spread to majority & snowball effect occurred

3. Evaluation

   • minority influence = gradual social change
     • history challenges claim that minority influence bring about quick social change
     • people tend to conform to majority & maintain status quo so less likely to engage in social change
     • explains why social change occurs so slowly - minorities have potential for social change not direct social change
   • Minority influence is deviant - limits influence
     • majority believe minority as deviant limits influence
     • majority avoid agreeing with minority otherwise seen as deviant themselves
     • message of minority has little impact as majority focus on source of message not the contents
   • social norm intervention not always = social change
     • research - people given normative info correcting misperception of drinking norms = no positive change in behaviour
     • DeJong et al (2009) students didn't lower alcohol consumption or change perceptions about student drinking levels
     • social norm intervention not enough for social change
   • Social change can occur through majority influence too
     • people change their behvaiour to what they think the norm is, behaviour based on what we think others do rather than what they really do
     • social norms intervention campaign informed people social norm not to drink drive, such behaviour fell by 13.7%
     • When misperceptions about behaviour are corrected, positive changes can occur
   • Social norm intervention can have opposite effect
     • people already behaving constructively may begin behaving destructively
     • Schultz et al (2007) campaign effective lowering heavy electrical users' consumption, but increased consumption in those originally using less
     • Social norms intervention can produce 'boomerang effect' increasing undesirable behaviour in people previously behaving desirably