Minority influence:

• What is Minority influence?

  The process by which a small group or individual influences the beliefs and behaviors of the majority.
• Minority influence:

  • Situations where one person or a small group of people influences the beliefs and behaviour of other people
  • Different from conformity where the majority is doing the influencing
  • In both cases the people being influenced may be just one person, or a small group or a large group of people
  • Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation- both public and private beliefs are changed by the process
• Who was Moscovici?


  Serge Moscovici was a social psychologist known for his work on social representations and group dynamics.
• Moscovici's experiment/process:

  • A group of six people were asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue of green
• Moscovici's results/findings:

  • First group had two confederates who consistently said the slides were green
  • The true participants gave the same wrong answer (green) on 8.42% of the trials
  • Second group of participants were exposed to an inconsistent minority (the confederates said 'green' 24 times and 'blue' 12 times)
  • In this case, agreement with the answer 'green' fell to 1.25%
  • Third control group there were no confederates and all participants had to do was identify the colour of each slide
  • They got this wrong on just 0.25% of the trials
• What does CCF stand for?

  C- consistency

  C- commitment

  F- flexibility
• Consistency:

  • The minority must be consistent in their views
  • Over time, this consistency increases the amount of interest from other people
  • Consistency can take the form of agreement between people in the group
  • A consistent minority makes other people start to rethink their own views
• What is synchronic consistency?

  They're all saying the same thing
• What is Diachronic consitency?

  They've been saying the same thing for some time
• Commitment:

  • The minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause or views
  • Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views
  • It is important that these extreme activities present some risk to the minority because this shows greater commitment
  • Majority group members then pay even more attention. This is called the augmentation principle
• Flexibility:

  • Nemeth argued that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be off-putting
  • Someone who is extremely consistent, who simply repeats the same old arguments and behaviours may be seen as rigid, unbending and dogmatic. This approach on its own is unlikely to gain many converts to the minority position
  • Instead, members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments
• The process of social change:

  • When we hear something new we consider it, especially if it is consistent, committed and flexible
  • This deeper processing is important in the conversion to a minority viewpoint
  • Overtime, people switch from the majority to the minority. They have converted
  • The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. This is called the snowball effect. The minority view becomes the majority view and change has occurred.