Social Change and Trendsetting: How do new movements occur?
In recent history, the Black Lives Matter movement, Tea Party movement, and the 2016 Presidential Candidate Donald Trump campaign have gained enough support that they have introduced newly accepted norms into the U.S. populace. What has happened for both of these movements to gain enough momentum to be widely recognized, while other movements die off with quiet protests on a street corner?
Luckily, Cristina Bicchieri’s research offers us a way to think about what might occur for there to be a social change. Bicchieri’s background includes sociology, psychology, business, and economics. Think of her as a bad-ass modern day philosopher.
What is social change
According to Bicchieri, a social norm is a rule that is taken up in a population, and social norms are almost never universal. Furthermore, within a population, people have an expectation that other people in the population will follow the rule (empirical) and that they SHOULD obey it (normative).
Both Black Lives Matter and the Tea Party are movements where individuals have gone against social norms in order to create new norms. They act as trendsetters. Bicchieri believes that different individuals are willing to abandon a norm under different circumstances. For example, one person might join a protest only if they think five or more other people are already participating.
The tipping point for a movement is when empirical expectations reach a point when the individuals do not fear punishment anymore. This is when normative expectations erode, meaning people start to no longer believe that it is a requirement for society. For example in the Black Lives Movement, as people join and as media coverage increases, individuals involved do not fear punishment. Then the normative expectation of how African-Americans are treated is eroded away as a norm.
Trendsetters
The trendsetters that lead the way in movements have a couple of key traits, which include:
- Low sensitivity to the specific norm
- Low sensitivity to risk (trait)
- Low perceptions of risk (state)
- High perceived self-efficacy
- Autonomy
Self-efficacy is the one that I thought was most interesting. It is the optimism in one’s ability to do something to institute change. Bicchieri also highlighted that if you perceptive that your actions are efficacious, then very likely your risk perception will be lower, because you will have followers.
To illustrate, Trump as a trendsetter has a low sensitivity to specific societal norms, a low sensitivity to risk, low perceptions of risk, a high perceived self-efficacy, and autonomy.
Bicchieri proposed that having the qualities above is not enough to successfully start a movement. Trendsetters may go against norms, but there might not be a following to continue the trend or maybe the movement starts with five people, but there is no one with a low enough risk perception to join in order to assist the growth process.
The role of networks
Social structure can fill in the gap — i.e. if you saw your friend was protesting, you would be more likely to protest. In the network below, who do you think is in a better position to be a trendsetter?
According to Bicchieri, people at the center has the most connections, which could be helpful, but they also have the most eyes on them, so their perception for risk is high, not the low that is needed for trendsetting. So, the edge members of the social network are in a better position.
Another option in instituting social change is also to break the network and create a new one — like the example of the Amish coming to the United States to start a new set of social norms. Bicchieri believes that one can share the risks of abandonment, but at the same time abandonment is not always possible.
This peripheral network activity is where the Black Lives Matter movement started. Many of the individuals were not at the center of community that might judge their actions. This movement is also led by younger populations, who have less to lose than older populations. Much like the Black Lives Matter movement, this is how the civil rights movement of the 1960s gained steam.
While Trump is a well connected individual, for the purpose of the realm of politics, he was on the edge. Much of the predictions at the beginning of his 2016 Presidential said that he did not have a chance. But over time he has been gaining more and more followers. Trump also seems to have all the characteristics of a trendsetter — low sensitivity to the specific norm, low sensitivity to risk, low perceptions of risk, high perceived self-efficacy, and autonomy.
Modeling and predicting the future
While Bicchieri did not get into details about how to model populations of social change, we can imagine what this would be like using Bicchieri’s thoughts on the individual’s perceptions/sensitivity towards risk, self-efficacy, and the actions that other members in their network are taking.
The three movements mentioned throughout this post are very different in nature when it comes to the structure of the movement.
- Black Lives Matter — no one powerful trendsetter, but many trendsetters
- The Tea Party — multiple power trendsetters, but not a single leader
- Trump Campaign — a leading trendsetter
For all of these movements (Black Lives Matter, Trump Campaign, and the Tea Party) it would be interesting to see what role the number of powerful trendsetters play along with what it might look like if they turned to abandonment as means to protect their new set of norms. What would that look like? Is that even possible? Are some of these movements already in this state?
