Minority influence

• Minority influence


  A form of social influence in which one person or a small group of people persuade others to adopt their believes, attitudes or behaviours. This leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours.
• Who studied minority influence?

  Moscovici
• Aim of Moscovici research

  Moscovici wanted to investigate the power of a minority influence on majority
• Moscovici procedure

  • 172 Particiapnts were tested to ensure they were not colour blind
  • In groups of 6 (2 confederates) Particiapnts were asked to state the colour of 36 slides. All the slides were different shades of blue.
  • Condition A: Confederates were consistent and called the slides green on all trials.
  • Condition B: The confederates were inconsistent and called the slides green 24 times and blue 12 times
  • Control condition: There was 6 naive Particiapnts and no confederates, Particiapnts said blue throughout.
• Findings from Moscovici’s research

  • In a control group (no confederates) only 0.25% of the participants reported any green slides
  • In the consistent group- Participants answered green in 8.42% of the trials, and 32% of the participants in the group answered green on at least one slide.
  • In the inconsistent group- Participants answered green 1.25% of the trials
• Conclusions made from Moscovici’s research

  • Minorities can influence majorities.
  • Minority influence is strongest when the minority is consistent in their views
  • When a minority is inconsistent in their views they are less influential
• What 3 processes are there in minority influence?

  • Consistency
  • Commitment
  • Flexibility
• Consistency

  • The minority’s views must be consistent in their opposition to majority.
  • The consistency in the minority’s views increases the amount of interest from other people.
  • Consistency can make other people rethink their own views
  • It works so well because we all have the need to be consistent in our own views
• Diachronic consistency


  Where a person maintains a consistent position over time
• Synchronic consistency


  Where there is agreement among members of the minority group
• Commitment

  • The minority is more powerful if they demonstrate their dedication to a cause e.g perhaps through personal sacrifice.
  • There must be some risk to the minority group because this demonstrates their commitment to the cause.
  • Majority then pay more attention
  • This leads to augmentation principle
• Augmentation principle

  When a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and so are taken more seriously by others.
• Flexibility

  • Nemeth argued that consistency can be interpreted negatively.
  • Being extremely consistent and repeating the same arguments and behaviours can be seen as unbending, dogmatic and inflexible which can be seen as off-putting by majority.
  • Members of the minority group need to be prepared to amend their views and accept reasonable counterarguments.
• Process of change- Minority influence

  • If you hear something new you may think about it especially if the source of the other view is consistent, committed and flexible.
  • It is this deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to a Different minority view
  • Over time, people convert from the majority position to minority position
  • The more this happens the faster the rate of conversion- snowball effect
  • Gradually the minority view has become the majority view and change has occured.
• Research support for internalisation

  • In a variation of Moscovici’s study, Participants were allowed to write their answers down so responses were private. Results found private agreement with minority position were greater in these circumstances. It appears the members of the majority were being convinced by minority’s arguments and changing their own views but were reluctant to admit it publicly which represents private internalisation.
  • Conversion is the private internalisation of the minority’s message. It is possible to convert to a minority view without acknowledging it publicly.
• Limited real life application

  • In real life situations the distinction between majority and minority is more complex
  • For instance, majority influences usually have a lot more power and status than minorities.
  • There are more differences between minority and majority than just numbers. Minorities are very committed to their cause. Most studies do not capture the commitment that minorities show towards their causes, including social support that members give each other when majority hostility threatens to overwhelm them.
• Artificial tasks

  • For instance, in Moscovici’s research the task of identifying different coloured slides is an artificial task that wouldn’t be completed in everyday life.
  • We cannot generalise the findings to real life as individuals may act differently when faced with a more realistic minority influence.
  • As a result the external validity of Moscovici’s study decreases as it is limited in what it can tell us about how minority influence works in real life social situations.
• Research support for consistency

  • For example, after Moscovici’s study, wood et al carried out a meta-analysis of around 100 similar studies. They found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential.
  • Consistency within the message increases certainty and confidence which will encourage individuals to start rethinking their own lives.
  • Therefore this suggests that consistency is a powerful tool for minority groups to have an influential impact.