Obedience: minority influence

• Minority influence is a form of social influence. It refers to situations where a small group or individual persuades the majority to adopt their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours.

  • It leads to internalisation.
• According to Moscovici (1969), minority influence is most effective when the minority demonstrates the following three key characteristics:

  1. Consistency
  2. Commitment
  3. Flexibility
• Consistency is when the minority must consistently express their viewpoint over time. This creates doubt about the established norms and encourages the majority to re-examine their views.

  • Synchronic consistency: All members of the minority express the same message.
  • Diachronic consistency: The minority maintains their stance over time
• Commitment is when the minority must demonstrate dedication to their cause, often by making personal sacrifices e.g. by engaging in extreme activities.

  • This is explained by the augmentation principle, which states that if a minority is willing to suffer for their views, others are more likely to take them seriously.
• Flexibility - While consistency is important, the minority must also show flexibility by being willing to compromise. A rigid, dogmatic stance can be perceived as unreasonable, reducing their influence.

  • The minority should strike a balance between consistency and adaptability to appeal to the majority.
• Minority influence works through deeper processing, where individuals in the majority begin to think more deeply about the minority's viewpoint. Over time, this can lead to internalization, where people privately accept the minority’s ideas even if they don’t initially express them outwardly.
• Process of minority influence:

  1. Attention is drawn to the minority’s viewpoint due to their consistency, commitment, and flexibility.
  2. Cognitive conflict occurs as the majority starts questioning their own beliefs.
  3. Deeper processing leads the majority to consider the minority’s perspective.
  4. The snowball effect occurs as more people adopt the minority view, eventually leading to widespread change.
• A strength of minority influence is that research evidence supports the importance of consistency. Moscovici et al. (1969) demonstrated that a consistent minority had a greater impact on the majority than an inconsistent one. In the consistent condition of their study, participants agreed with the minority 8.4% of the time, compared to only 1.25% in the inconsistent condition. This highlights how consistency makes the minority’s message more influential, as it prompts the majority to reconsider their views.
• Moscovici’s Study (1969) aimed to investigate the role of consistency in minority influence.

  Procedure:

  • A group of six participants (four real, two confederates) was asked to identify the color of slides, which were all blue.
  • In the consistent condition, the confederates consistently said the slides were green.
  • In the inconsistent condition, the confederates said "green" on two-thirds of the trials and "blue" on the remaining third.
  • A control group with no confederates was also included.
• Moscovici’s Study (1969) Findings:

  • In the consistent condition, participants agreed with the minority 8.4% of the time, and 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial.
  • In the inconsistent condition, agreement dropped to 1.25%.
  • The control group showed virtually no green responses.
• A limitation of research into minority influence is the use of artificial tasks. For example, Moscovici's study involved identifying slide colours which is a simple task which lacks meaning and the complexity of real-world social influence. Minority influence in real life often involves controversial topics that have important outcomes which studies like Moscovici's do not. This means findings from such studies may lack ecological validity, and their ability to explain real-world minority influence is limited.
• A strength of minority influence is evidence showing it leads to deeper processing of ideas. Martin et al. (2003) found that when people were exposed to a minority view, they were more likely to process the information deeply and resist attempts to change their opinion later, compared to when they were exposed to a majority view. This suggests minority influence creates more enduring attitude change because it encourages individuals to think critically about the issue.