Social Change

Throughout history there have been individuals and group who have created social change, these people have been able to create a long-term alteration to society through the use of effective technique, some of these techniques have been identified in social influence research.

You need to be aware of what social influence research tells us about how we can create social change.

 

Independent Behaviour

We have already studied the types of social influence (conformity - compliance and internalisation and obedience) and then we've investigated why individuals behave in these ways (NSI, ISI & G.L.A.D) but we need to remember that Asch, Sherif and Milgram did not ever achieve 100% influence meaning that some participants were able to resist the pressure on them to show independent behaviour.

This section is split into to 2 - resisting conformity and resisiting obedience.

You can be asked about these individually or a general question about explanations for independent behaviour in which case you'd mention both.

Use the presentation above to complete the sheet below

Explanations for Obedience

You have already looked at key research into Obedience to Authority, surprisingly 65% of Milgram's participants went to the full voltage despite their actions being potentially deadly. We now need to investigate WHY these people obeyed the instructions provided for so long.

Use the presentation below to complete the now sheet and scroll further down the page to watch a video

 

Obedience

For this section of the specification you need to know one key piece of research into obedience to authority

Use the presentation below to complete the note sheet on obedience to authority. You will find the evaluation for Milgram's research really straightforward as you can use just research methods (e.g. androcentric, low ecological validity)

See a clip from Milgram's original experiment below

Below is a cartoon made by a student in a different college, it's not entirely accurate but it will give you a good visualisation of what happened

Explanations of internalisation

You must be very clear about how this fits into the specification.

So far we have identified research that shows people changing their behaviour and views when they've gathered information from others because they want to be right but Informational Social Influence provides us with an explanations of why this happens.

You know the drill...presentation and note sheet below

 

Explanations of compliance

You must be very clear about how this fits into the specification.

So far we have identified research that shows people changing their behaviour to fit in with a group but Normative Social Influence provides us with an explanations of why this happens.

You know the drill...presentation and note sheet below

 

Compliance

Compliance is when people change their behaviour but not their views. It's a short-term change and it usually occurs when individuals know what to do in a situation but want to fit in with a group

Use the presentation to help you complete the note sheet below.

Watch this short clip of Asch's research from 1951

Internalisation

Internalisation is when people change their behaviour and their views. It's a long-term change and it usually occurs when individuals are unsure of what to do and so look to others for information

Watch the short video below about Sherif's research...




Then use the note sheet below to gather information from the presentation under that