evaluation

• strength - research support for consistency pt1

  one strength pf the consistency explanations for how minority influence is that there is research evidence supporting the importance of consistency.

  Moscovici's blue/green slide study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion.
• strength - research support for consistency pt2

  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 presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority
• strength - research support for deeper processing pt1

  another strength of deeper processing as an explanation for how minority influence occurs is evidence showing that a change in the majority's position does involve deeper processing go the minority's ideas.

  Martin et al presented a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants' agreement. one group of participants then heard a minority group agree with the initial view while another group heard a majority group agree with it. participants were finally exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again.
• strength - research support for deeper processing pt 2

  people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group.

  this suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence works.
• strength - research support for deeper processing - counterpoint pt 1

  research studies such as Martin et al make clear distinctions between the majority and the minority

  doing this in a controlled way isa strength of minority influence research. but real-world social influence situations are much more complicated.
• strength - research support for deeper processing - counterpoint pt 2

  for example, majorities usually have a lot more power and status than minorities. minorities are very committed to their causes - they have to be because they often face very hostile opposition. these features are usually absent from minority influence research - the minority is simply the smallest group.

  therefore Martin et al's findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real-world situations.
• limitation - artificial tasks pt 1

  one limitation of minority influence research is that the tasks involved are often just as artificial as Asch's line judgement task.

  this includes moscovici et al's task of identifying the colour of a slide. research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life.
• limitation - artificial tasks pt 2

  in cases such as jury decision-making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important, sometimes even literally a matter of life or death.

  the 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-world social situations.
• limitation - importance of minority influence pt 1

  a final point to consider is the extent to which minority influence is truly a form of social influence.

  in moscovici et al's study, the figure for agreement with a consistent minority was very low, on average only 8%. this suggests that minority influenced is quite rare and not a useful concept.
• limitation - importance of minority influence pt 2

  but when participants wrote down their answers privately, they are more likely to agree with the minority view. this suggests that the view expressed by people in public was just the 'tip of the iceberg'.

  this leads us to consider the extent to which minority influence is a valid form of social influence as its influence on behaviour is multi-faceted.