Social change

Question 1

What is social change?

Answer 1

The way in which a society develops overtime to replace beliefs, attitudes and behaviour with new norms and expectations.

Question 2

What are some real-word applications/examples of social change?

Answer 2

• Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white male passenger in the 1950s which triggered the civil rights movement to end racial segregation laws in America. She showed her commitment by putting herself at risk which brought attention and social change

Question 3

What are all the processes involved in social change?

Answer 3

Consistency - The minority sharing the same belief and retaining it overtime + sticking to it

Deeper processing - The more people think about the issue rather than blindly accepting it, the more likely social change can occur

Drawing attention - The majority must be aware in order for there to be a social change

The augmentation principle - When the minority put themselves in dangerous and risky situations it bring attention from the majority to the minority

The snowball effect - When more and more people gradually start paying attention to the minority (builds up like a snowball)

Social cryptoamnesia - When the society forget the origin or original source of the social change even though the social change has occurred

NSI - Social change can be encouraged if they convince the majority to change according to normative reasons

Gradual commitment - People gradually adopt a new way of behaving overtime by following small instructions that slowly lead to bigger ones

Question 4

Evaluate social change

Answer 4

• Minority influence can act as a barrier to social change. Bashir et al investigated why many people resist social change even when they believe it is needed and found that it was due to fear of being stereotypical labelled e.g: feminists/activists