Minority Influence

• Minority influence


  type of social influence that occurs when an individual or small groups influence attitudes and behaviour of a larger group
• Commitment


  minorities engage in extreme/risky behaviour to draw attention to their views

  majority group members then pay even more attention, known as the augmentation principle

  majority is more likely to integrate it into their personal viewpoints, due to personal sacrifice made by minority
• Augmentation principle


  when the majority pays attention to selfless and risky actions being taken by the minority group and is more likely to integrate the group's opinion into their own personal viewpoints due to the personal sacrifice made by the minority
• Consistency


  consistency in minority's views increase amount of interest from other people

  consistency might be agreement between people in minority group

  synchronic consistency - saying the same thing

  diachronic consistency - saying the same thing for some time now
• Flexibility


  Nemeth argued consistency isn't only important factor in minority influence as it can be interpreted negatively

  being consistent and repeating same arguments and behaviours again and again can be seen as rigid and inflexible - off-putting to majority and unlikely to result in any conversions to minority position

  members in minority need to be prepared to adapt to their POV
• Snowball effect


  once the minority viewpoint has got the attention of some of the majority group members, more and more people begin paying attention and the minority viewpoint gathers momentum
• Moscovici et al ('blue side, green slide')

  AIM: wanted to see if consistent minority could influence a majority to give an increased answer, in colour perception test

  PROCEDURE: sample consisted of 172 female American ppts, told were taking pat in colour perception task

  ppts were placed into groups of 6 and shown 36 slides, all varying shades of blue

  ppts had to say outloud colour of each slide

  placed in a group of 4 ppts and 2 confederates

  FINDINGS: in consistent condition, ppts agreed on 8.2% of trials.

  inconsistent condition, real ppts only agreed on 1.25% of trials.

  shows in consistent minority is 6.95% more effective than inconsistent minority

  CONCLUSION: consistency is an important factor in exerting minority influence
• Strength - support for ISI

  Moscovici's research support ISI

  in one of variations, ppts were asked to write down their answers rather than outloud.

  under these circumstances, agreement with minority position was higher, suggesting they'd internalised viewpoint as true

  Moscovicisuggests majority was convinced of minority's argument but found it easier to confess this privately as being associated with minority position may seem 'radical'

  Strength - suggests ppts went along with minority as they believed they were right, supporting explanation of ISI
• Strength - support for consistency

  Moscovici's study showed a consistent minority opinion has greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion

  Wood et al carried out a meta-analysis of 100 similar studies and found minorities who seen as being consistent were mostly influential.

  Strength -suggests consistency is a major factor in minority influence
• Weakness - issues with sample

  Moscovici's research can be criticised for being gynocentric

  sample consisted of female ppts means only female response to minority influence was being assessed during investigation.

  Weakness - results can't be generalised beyond research to men and may respond differently to minority influence

  recognised women are typically more conformist so results lack population validity
• Weakness - methodological issues

  judging colour is slide is artificial task therefore lacking mundane realism

  research conditions are criticised as being too far removed from cases of real-world minority influence such as political campaigning and jury decision making.

  implications are disproportionate to those seen in a lab setting as they can for some people be cases of life of death, so study lacks external validity.

  Weakness - findings are limited in what they tell us about minority influence in IRL situations