Social Influence - social change

Question 1

what is social change

Answer 1

whole societies rather than individuals adopt new attitudes beliefs and ways of doing things

Question 2

how is group membership shown

Answer 2

Maass et al (1982)
- minority of heterosexual men were more likely to convince a heterosexual majority about gay rights in comparison to a minority of homosexual people
- straight men have more power when discussing gay rights with other straight men
- similarity in terms of group membership is an important factor for minority influence and social change

Question 3

limitation of social change

Answer 3

• strong tendency for humans to conform to the majority
• minority influence creates potential for change but doesn’t always make it occur
• if a minority is perceived to be deviant
• majority focused on the fact the minority is deviant rather than the message they are portraying

Question 4

what are the 6 stages by which social change occurs

Answer 4

• drawing attention to the issue
• consistency
• deeper processing
• augmentation principle
• the snowball effect
• social crypto amnesia

Question 5

drawing attention

Answer 5

• highlighting a concern, views, beliefs to society
• suffragettes used educational, political tactics to draw attention to the fact women were denied the same voting rights as men

Question 6

consistency

Answer 6

• continually displaying a message
• protests continued for years until society were convinced women could votes

Question 7

deeper processing

Answer 7

• those who simply accepted the status quo began to question their own views and beliefs
• suffragettes created conflict between existing status quo and their position

Question 8

augmentation principle

Answer 8

• minorities take risks to further to cause
• suffragettes were willing to risk imprisonment, death to fight for views

Question 9

snowball effect

Answer 9

• moving from the majority view to minority
• universal suffrage accepted by the majority of people in the UK - all adults could vote

Question 10

social cryptoamnesia

Answer 10

social change has occurred but people can’t remember the extent minorities had to go to for a change

Question 11

what makes social change more likely

Answer 11

• dissenting confederates in Asch’s study
• disobedient participants in Milgram’s study