Minority Influence

• What are the 3 ways that a minority can influence a majority?


  • flexibility
  • consistency
  • committment
• What is consistency as a process in minority influence?


  sticking to the same beliefs:

  • diachronic consistency - having and saying the same view form a long period of time
  • synchronic consistency - saying the same view even when the minority isn't all together
• What is commitment as a process of minority influence?


  engagement in extreme activities to draw attention to their views:

  • enables the 'augmentation principle' - the changing of peoples' views, valuing the minority's cause as they are risking something
• what is flexibility as a process of minority influence?


  Adaptability of views (if needed):

  • listening to other opinions and accepting them as reasonable or valid points
  • striking a balance between views
• what is meant by deeper processing?


  • when the 3 factors of minority influence cause people to consider the minority's view so they stop & think about it.
  • hearing something new might cause you to think more deeply
• what does deeper processing lead to?


  the snowball effect
• what is the snowball effect?


  The snowball effect refers to a situation where something starts small and gradually grows larger and more significant over time.

  • more people adopt a minority view till it becomes a majority view, change has occured
• what was the procedure of group 1 of Moscovici's study?


  trying to convince the naive participant that the blue slides shown are actually green

  • group 1 -> 6 people viewing a set of 36 blue slides (varying in intensity), 2 confederates consistently answered green, findings: 8.42% of participants agreed with minority in all trials
• what was the procedure of group 2 in Moscovici's study?


  trying to convince the naive participants that the blue slides are green

  • group 2 -> inconsistent minority, 2 confederates said that the slides were green 12 times and blue 24 times, findings: 1.25% agreement of green slides
• what was the procedure of group 3 in Moscovici's study?

  control group

  • group 3 -> no confederates, all naive participants.

  findings: participants said 0.25% of slides were green
• One strength for consistency

  research support -> Moscovici et al study:

  • showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing views than an inconsistent minority
  • wood et al carried out a meta-analysis of 100 similar studies & found that minorities who were more consistent = more influential
  • suggesting that presenting a consistent minority view is a minimum requirement for an influential minority against a majority
• What is one strength of deeper processing?

  Research support from Martin et al. 2003

  • presented a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants' agreement
• What were the findings regarding group 1's likelihood to change their view?in Martin et al's study


  They were less likely to change their view
• Why did group 1 show less likelihood to change their view?(in Martin et al's study)

  They heard a minority agree, not a majority
• What is the process of the study conducted by Martin et al. (2003)?

  • Participants heard messages supporting viewpoints
  • Group 1: minority group agreement
  • Group 2: majority group agreement
  • All exposed to conflicting viewpoint
  • Measured agreement before and after
  • Findings: minority influence is successful in producing social change
• Counterpoint of Matin et al -> Eval

  • conducting his research in a controlled setting makes clear distinctions between minority and majority
  • but in real worlds social influence situations this is more complicated
  • in research minority is only seen as the smaller group when really they have to be more committed and risk taking against a powerful majority
  • therefore Martin et al's findings are limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world situations
• one limitation of minority influence


  tasks involved are as artificial as Asch's line judgement task -> such as Moscovici's study with identifying the coloured slides

  • research is far removed from how a minority actually attempts to change the view of a majority in real life.
  • meaning the findings of minority influence studies lack external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world social situations
• weakness of minority influence (weakest eval point)


  in Moscovici's study -> the figure for agreement with a consistent minority was only 8%, suggesting minority influence is rare and not a useful concept.

  but when answers were written down privately, people were more likely to agree with the minority view, suggesting that the view expressed publicly by people is just the tip of the iceberg