8: How Movements Happen
The author describes social norms as the habits of a society, and cultural movements as the way that the habits of a society change.
There's a long bit about the Rosa Parks incident, noting that Parks was not the first to refuse to surrender her seat - there were many arrests for this each year, and similar incidents were documented from a decade earlier. What was notable about it was that Parks was not an agitator or a social activist. Her refusal was not the first, but marked a turning point where a movement has gained critical mass, such that everyday people who don't concern themselves with politics are ready to get involved.
It's also noted that Parks was well respected in the community, as a participant rather than a leader. She did volunteer work with a number of different groups - so when she was arrested, people didn't see it as the agitation of some unknown radical, but something that happened to an ordinary person, someone they knew and respected. "She had a large, diverse, and connected set of friends who, when she was arrested, reacted as friends naturally respond."
There's a description of the Granoveter study in 1960, which studied how 282 men found employment, giving rise to the notion that "it's not what you know, it's who you know" when it comes to making a career. People leverage a network of contacts to find employment, and people will "vouch" for a friend but not for a stranger.
But beyond direct connections, there is also a much broader and weaker network of "Friends of friends" - and its suggested that this broader network is more influential. We are generally "friends" with people we spend time with - we see them every day, and tend to run in the same small circles of acquaintances. But "friends of friends" include a much larger and more diverse array of people - the fellow we met once at a cocktail party two years ago knows far more people whom we have never met, and have access to more information and resources than our own inner circle of friends.
When it comes to social movements, it is easy enough for an opinion to spread within the inner circle of a clique, but very difficult for that opinion to spread from the clique to others to which it is connected by individual members. The greater the number of common members between one circle and another, the greater the chance that an idea will spread from one to the other.
The method by which opinions spread is simple enough: it is a matter of peer pressure. When one or two of your friends holds an unusual belief, they're just oddballs - but when the majority of your friends hold the unusual belief, you feel that you are the oddball for not seeing things their way. Holding that belief is one of the group norms, that define membership and belonging in that group.
Another study (McAdam 1980) looked into motivation: what makes the difference between a person who takes action and one who does not, given that they espouse similar ideas? The obvious cause, being self-centered or socially-minded, did not make a difference between talk and action. Opportunity costs and obstacles likewise showed no significant link. What made the difference was social connections - those who participated in the demonstration belonged to a number of social groups in common - and so it was peer pressure. They demonstrated because they felt their friends would expect them to demonstrate. Again, it's peer pressure.
There's a bit where religious groups are shown to use the same sort of tactics - to make it seem that doing whatever they demand of others is a part of being a member of the church. In this way, they imply a threat to a person's social standing if they fail to comply. This wraps back to the Parks incident - it is no accident that many civil rights leaders were also religious figures: they were able to use their position in the church to influence their congregations that participation in the political movement was a religious duty.
Switch to a pastor who wanted to found a church. He didn't want to inherit a congregation that was already successful, but to go into a place where there were not many religious people and create a church from scratch. He began with researching why people didn't go to church, and discovered that they felt it simply was not relevant to their lives. And so, he began a church that seemed more like a self-help clinic, with sermons focused on "how to" topics.
But his greatest success came by accident: because the church was not large enough to host study sessions for all parishioners, he asked certain of his flock to host study sessions in their homes. This gave people a "first circle" clique among the smaller group, connected to the broader network of people at the church. And because it was a religion, people were tolerant of instruction: by creating curriculums for the study groups, he was disseminating a set of attitudes, beliefs, and habits that created a common culture for his growing congregation.