Minority influence

• Moscovici et al.’s(1969) study


  Procedure

  • group of 6 people- 4 participants and 2 confederates
  • viewed 36 blue coloured slides of varying intensisites and asked to state whether the slides were blue or green
  • In one condition confederates said the slides we green in another the confederates were inconsistent and there was a control group with no confederates

  Findings

  • Consistent minority- paticipants gave the same wrong answer in 8.42% trials
  • Inconsistent minority- agreement fell to 1.25%
  • Control group- wrong only 0.25% of the time
• What is minority influence?

  How one person or small group influences the beliefs and behaviours of others.

  May just influence one person or the majority/a group of people
• How is minority influence different to conformity?

  In minority influence, a small group influences the majority, while in conformity, individuals change their beliefs or behaviors to fit in with the majority.
• Minority influence leads to internalisation

  • both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed
• what ere the 3 processes that lead to minority influence?

  Consistency, commitment and flexibility
• What is consistency?

  Always going the same thing
• Consistency


  Means the minority’s view gains more interest

  Makes others rethink their own views
• what is synchronic consistency?

  Everyone saying the same thing
• What is diachronic consistency?

  People saying the same thing for some time
• What is commitment?

  Showing deep involvement
• Commitment

  Helps gain attention

  • e.g through extreme activities

  Must be some risk to the minority to demonstrate commitment to the cause.

  Augmentation principle

  • majority pay even more attention
• What is the augmentation principle?

  The majority pay even more attention to the minority due to the commitment they show suggesting that it is of great importance
• What is flexibility?

  Showing willingness to listen to others
• Flexibility

  The minority should balance consistency and flexibility so they don’t appear rigid.

  Being consistent and repeating the same arguments and behaviours is seen as rigid and off putting to the majority.

  • instead the minority should adapt theor point of view and accept reasonable counter arguments
• Explaining the process of minority

  Individuals think deeply about the minority position becuase it is new/unfamiliar

  snowball effect

  • over time more people become converted and there’s a switch from the minority to the majority

  The more this happens the faster the rate of conversion

  Gradually the minority view becomes the majority and social change has occurred
• What is the snowball effect?

  The snowball effect refers to a situation where something starts small and gradually grows larger and more significant over time.
• Research supporting consistency- A03

  Moscovici et al

  • found a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on others than an inconsistent opinion

  Wood et al. (1994)

  • conducted a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies
  • found that minorities seen as being consistent were most influential

  confirming that consistency is a major factor in minority influence
• Research showing role of deeper processing- A03

  Martin et al. (2003)

  • gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured attitudes
  • they then heard an endorsement of view from either a minority or a majority
  • finally they heard a conflicting view and then attitudes were measured again
  • participants were less willing to change their opinions to the new conflicting view if they’d listened to a minority group than if they listened to a majority group

  Suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect
• Low mundane realism- A03

  In research studies majority and minority groups are distinguished in terms of numbers

  But there’s more to majorities/minorities than just numbers

  • e.g. power, status, commitment

  this means research studies are limited in what they tell us about real world minority influence
• Artificial tasks- A03

  Minority influence research often involves artificial tasks.

  Moscovici et al.’s task was identifying the colour of a slide is much different to how minorities try to change opinion in the real world.

  E.g. In jury decision making and political campaigning, outcomes are much more important

  So findings of studies lack external validity and are limited in what they tells us about how minority influence works in real world situations
• Power of minority influence- A03

  Agreement with the minority was only 8% in Moscovici’s study

  • minority influence must be quite rare and so may not be a useful concept

  But more participanst agreed with the minority when writing their answers privately

  • so those who go public must hold their new views very strongly

  so minority influence is valid

  • it’s a relatively unusual form of social influence but can change people’s views powerfully and permanently