Minority Influence

• A type of social influence that motivates individuals to reject established majority group norms

  • occurs when one person or a small group influences the opinions of other people
  • achieved through the process of conversion, where majorities become gradually won over to a minority viewpoint
  • conversion usually occurs through ISI
• Minority influence takes longer than majority influence based on compliance

  • individuals need time to re examine their beliefs in behaviours before internally changing their views

  As more and more people change their attitude, the pace picks up and the minority gain power and status until they become the majority. This is known as the snowball effect and can lead to innovation and social change.
• 3 behaviour styles that are important

  • consistency
  • commitment
  • flexibility
• Consistency

  • minority influence is most powerful when the minority are consistent in their viewpoint
  • consistence happens when a minority is underchanging with its opinions and can show it is confident in its beliefs and remain unbiased
  • over time, consistency can increase the amount of interest from other people and helps motivate individuls to reconsider their viewpoint
  • MOSCOVICI found that a consistent minority had a greater influence on majority that an inconsistent minority
• Commitment

  • if activity has some risk, they will appear committed to their cause
  • maitaining viewpoint despire abuse or pressure shows it can make majority pay even more attention as it shows certainty, confidence and courage in front of a hostile minority
• Flexibility

  • Nemeth argued that consistency is not the only important factor - repeating same argument can be seen as dogmatic, inflexibile and rigid, which can be very off putting
  • Demonstrating an ability to adapt their point of view, must show flexibility by being moderate, co operative and reasonable, which enables them to be persuasive
  • The key is to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility
• Mugny and Papastamou

  • Ps were exposed to a minority's extreme views on how to control pollution
  • They found that when the minority refused to budge, they were not persuasive
  • BUT when a compromise was made, and flexibility was shown, they were seen as less extreme , more co operative and reasonable
• Moscovici et al (1969)

  • AIM - investigating the role of a consistent minority upon the opinions of a majority in an unambiguous situation
• Moscovici et al (1969)

  • PROCEDURE
  • Ps were placed in 32 groups of six
  • In each group there were 36 blue slides shown with filters shown of varying intensity
  • Ps asked to judge the colour and give answers verbally
  • Consistent condition - confederates answered wrongly that the slides were all green
  • Inconsistent condition- confederates said that 24 slides were green and 12 were blue
• Moscovici et al (1969)

  • FINDINGS
  • Consistent - 8.2% agreement with minority
  • Inconsistent - 1.25% agreement with minority
• Moscovici et al (1969)

  • CONCLUSION
  • the findings in the consistent condition were significantly higher than the findings in the inconsistent condition which shows that inconsistency is an important variable in minority influence
• Moscovici et al (1969) - A03

  MUNDANE REALISM

  • the study lacks mundane realism as it is not something that happens in every day life and so the findings may not be generalisable to the settings of real life situations
• Moscovici et al (1969)- A03

  UNETHICAL

  • involved deception
  • the Ps thought that they were investigating perception
  • informed consent was not given
  • protection from harm may have been breached as Ps may have experienced mild stress during the situation
• Moscovici et al (1969) -A03

  ONLY FEMALE Ps

  • only female participants were used and this was based on Moscovici's assumption that they would be more interested in colours
  • generalised findings to males even though they were not studied, so this lacks validity
  • findings can be called gynocentric
• Moscovici et al (1969) - A03

  *contrast it with other factors: group size, flexibility, etc