Social Change
- Created by: Emily903
- Created on: 26-10-17 15:39
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- Social Change
- Social change occurs when a society or section of society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm.
- Social change through minority influence.
- 1. Drawing attention to the issue: this may create conflict which the minority will be motivated to reduce.
- 2. Cognitive conflict: majority begin to think more deeply about the views of the minority. Some begin to change their opinion.
- 3. Consistency of the position = more influential.
- 4. The augmentation principle: if a minority appears willing to suffer for their view they are seen to be more committed and more likely to be taken seriously.
- 5. The snowball effect: initially there is little effect, but slowly more and more people consider the issue and begin to change their views. This leads to social change.
- Evalution
- Being perceived as "deviant" limits the influence of minorities. Focus is drawn from the message to the source of the message.
- Creates the potential for change, not actual change e.g. Suffragettes caused quick change where as minority influence is a gradual process as there is a strong tendency for human to conform to the majority view.
- Social change through majority influence (conformity).
- Behaviour choices are related to social norms.
- If people perceive a behaviour to be the norm, they tend to alter their behaviour to fit the norm. Behaviour therefore is based what people think others believe and do.
- Social norm interventions: an attempt to correct misperceptions of the normative behaviour of peers in an attempt to change the risky behaviour of the target population.
- E.g. "most of us don't drink and drive". Drinking and driving reduced from 20.2% to 13.7% compared to countries who did not run the campaign.
- Evaluation
- Boomerang effect: Schultz et al (2007) - people who do not fit the social norm may begin to engage in destructive behaviours.
- Dejong (2005) found no effect in normative information when trying to get students to drink less alcohol.
- Behaviour choices are related to social norms.
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