Social Change Flashcards
(9 cards)
When does social change come about?
When whole societies alter their attitudes and behaviour. The majority of people in society adopt new ways of thinking and behaving.
Minority influence has a role in social change. Why must they demonstrate consistency?
Consistency - So people start to focus on the message. Members of the majority start to consider the minority message and experience cognitive conflict. The minority brings about deeper thinking about the matter, puncturing certainty.
Minority influence has a role in social change. Why must they demonstrate commitment?
Commitment - by participating in risky activities which places them in personal or physical danger, the behaviour augments or strengthens the influence of the minority, known as the augmentation principle.
Minority influence has a role in social change. What happens as more and more people promote the minority view?
A tipping point arises where a view proposed by the minority becomes the view of the majority, happening via the snowball effect, as the minority group grows exponentially from the minority to the majority. Social change has then occurred.
Give a strength of the role of minority influence in social change.
Evidence - communist manifesto of Marx and Engels set out to avoid being seen as different to the majority. They made it clear they had the same interests as the majority and emphasised they were a part of the majority and working class, and struggled against the owners of production like them. This shows a minority group needs to strive to show the majority they’re the same as them.
Give 3 criticisms of the role of minority influence in social change.
Impact of minority limited as members are regarded as odd. Research found people were reluctant to behave in environmentally friendly ways even tho they knew it was important because they didn’t want to be associated w environmentalists.
People identify feminists as ‘man haters’ suggesting minority faces a considerable challenge in inciting social change because members of majority don’t want to appear non-conformity
Moscovicis research showed pps were more likely to agree that the slide was green when they could privately respond - they didn’t want to be seen to align themselves with the deviant minority
Define the role of conformity in social change.
The knowledge that people are strongly influenced to be the same as others can be used to bring about social change through exposing people to social norms interventions to try to alter behaviour through normative social influence. Eg ‘bin it - everyone else does’
Give 2 strengths of the role of conformity in social change.
Montana state uni tried to reduce drinking and driving behaviour (social change) in adults 21-34.
92% believed peers had drunk drove in the previous month
Intervention claimed that most Montana young adults (4/5) didn’t drink and drive leading to a 13% reduction in drink driving
Study in 2008 hung messages on front doors of houses in San Diego saying most local residents were reducing their energy consumption, leading to a decrease in energy consumption in said group.
Give a criticism of the role of conformity in social change.
2009 - used this approach to reduce alcohol consumption in students across 14 sites and used a postal survey to compare perceptions of drinking norms and personal drinking behaviour before and 3 years after the campaign. Despite marketing campaign correcting misconceptions about social norms, students showed no reduction in perceptions of student drinking levels and didn’t report drinking less themselves.
