Minority Influence

• What is meant by Minority Influence?

  Form of social influence in which a minority of people (sometimes 1 person) persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.
• What does Minority Influence lead to?

  Conversion.
• What is meant by Conversion?

  Involves the new belief/behaviour being accepted both publicly and privately and can be seen as a type of internalisation, as it involves a change in an individuals belief system and as such is regarded as a strong form of conformity.
• What are the 3 major factors to Minority Influence?

  Consistency, commitment, and flexibility.
• What are the 2 types of Consistency?

  1. Synchronic consistency
  2. Diachronic consistency
• What is Synchronic consistency?

  Consistency between members of the minority group
• What is Diachronic consistency?


  Consistency over time
• What is Commitment?


  Minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication (or commitment) to their position. This is effective because it shows that the minority is acting out of self interest.
• What is Flexibility?


  Members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their points of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments.
• Example of Synchronic consistency:

  Every member of the minority group has the same beliefs about why climate crisis must be addressed
• Example of Diachronic consistency:

  The minority group do not keep changing what they say is important to address climate change
• Example of Commitment:


  Getting arrested when taking part in a protest to raise awareness of the climate crisis.
• Example of Flexibility:


  EG climate change activists could listen and accept parliament initiatives working towards climate change e.g. electric cars by 2030
• When was Moscovici’s study?

  1969
• What was Moscovici’s aim?

  to see whether a consistent minority of participants could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception test
• What was Moscovic’s method?

  172 American participants - all had good eye site

  6 participants at a time were asked to etimate the colour of 36 slides, all slides were blue, but of differing brightness. 2/6 participants were confederates of the experimenter.
• What were the 2 conditions?

  1. Consistent condition - The two confederates called the slide screen on all the trials.
  2. Inconsistent condition - The two confederates called the slide screen 24 times and blue 12 times.
• What was Moscovici’s findings?

  1. Consistent condition = 8.4% conformity
  2. Inconsistent condition = 1.3% conformity
• What was Moscovici’s conclusion?

  This means that being consistent and changing in the view as a minority is more likely to influence the majority than if they are inconsistent and chop and change their mind.
• What research supports Flexibility?

  Nemeth
• What did Nemeth investigate?

  The idea of flexibility in which participants, in groups of four, had to agree on the amount of compensation they would give to a ski-lift accident.
• What were the 2 conditions?

  1. When the minority (confederate) argued for a low rate of compensation and refused to change their position, this was the inflexible condition.
  2. When the minority (confederate) argued for a low rate of compensation, but compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of compensation, this was the flexible condition.
• What did Nemeth find?

  In the inflexible condition, the minority had little or no effect on the majority, however in the flexible condition, the majority was much more likely to compromise and change the view. This highlights the importance of flexibility but questions the idea of consistency.