AO1

• Minority Influence

  When a small group of people influence the view of the majority.
• Moscovici: Minority Influence

  Moscovici conducted an experiment "calling a blue shade green" which investigated how a consistent minority can affect the opinions of a majority. He had two all-female groups, one consistent and one inconsistent but each with 6 naive participants and 4 confederates. Each group was shown 36 slides of blue, the consistent group said green every time but the inconsistent group said green 24 times and blue 12 times.
• Moscovici: Minority Influence

  Moscovici found that the inconsistent group had an obedience rate of 1.25%, compared the the consistent group which had 8.42%. This shows that consistency leads to obedience.
• There are three key behavioural characteristics of the minority that lead to obedience:

  • Consistency
  • Commitment
  • Flexibility
• Consistency

  There are two types of consistency; diachronic and synchronic. Diachronic consistency is when everyone in the minority says the same thing over time. Synchronic consistency is when everyone in the minority has the same view.
• Commitment

  Sometimes minorities engage in extreme activities to show their commitment to their cause. This draws the attention of the majority. It is important that the activity poses some threat to the minority in order to show their commitment.
• Flexibility

  Nemeth argued that their needs to be a balance between consistency and flexibility, as being extremely consistent can be off-putting and dogmatic which is unlikely to lead to any conversions. Instead, the minority needs to be flexible be willing to adapt their point of view and accept valid counter arguments.
• Consistency, commitment and flexibility are all factors that make people think about the topic, creating deeper processing and over time people are converted which creates the snowball effect.