Minority influence

• Minority influence = a form of social influence where a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Leads to internalisation or conversion.
• Consistency = minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, both over time and between all the individuals that form the minority. It's effective because it draws attention to the minority view.
• Commitment = minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their position, for example, by making personal sacrifices. This is effective because it shows the minority is not acting out of self-interest.
• Flexibility = relentless consistency could be counter-productive if it is seen as by the majority as unbending and unreasonable. Therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority shows flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise.
• Synchronic consistency = every member of the minority is saying the same thing
• Diachronic consistency = consistency over time- they've been saying the same thing for some time now.
• Consistency makes other people start to rethink their own views ("maybe they've got a point if they all think this way" or "maybe they've got a point if they have kept saying it")
• Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views. It is important that these extreme activities are at some risk to the minority because this demonstrates commitment to the cause. Majority group members then pay even more attention. This is called the augmentation principle.
• Nemeth argued that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be interpreted negatively. Repeating the same arguments and behaviours again and again can be seen as rigid, unbending and inflexible. This is off-putting to the majority. Instead the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguments.
• All of these three factors make people think about the topic. If you hear something which agrees with what you already believe it doesn't make you stop and think. But if you hear something new, then you might think about it, especially if the source of this view is consistent and passionate. It is this deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority viewpoint.
• Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority position to the minority position. The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. This is called the snowball effect. Gradually the minority view has become the majority view and change has occurred.
• Moscovici et al.'s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion. Wood et al. carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential. This suggests that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.
• Martin et al. gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support. One group then heard a minority agree with the initial view while another group head this from a majority group. Participants were then exposed with a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again. Martin found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group. This suggests the minority message has been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.
• A limitation of minority influence research is that the tasks involved- such as identifying the colour of a slide- are as artificial as Asch's line judgment task. Research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life (e.g. a jury decision has much more important outcomes). This means findings of minority influence studies are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real-life social situations.