Moscovici

• the moscovici experiment was a real life study on minority influence

  moscovici wanted to investigate the limits of influence
• moscovici used 192 female students and split them into groups of 6

  they were then shown 36 blue slides in different shades of blue

  there were 2 minority confederates who said that the slides were green

  everyone did verbal answers
• when the confederates were consistent there was an agreement rate of 8.2%

  32% agreed with the minority once

  When the confederates were inconsistent, there was an agreement rate of 1.25%
• Consistent minority were more influential even though their answers were clearly wrong
• Lack of generalisability

  There were all female participants, which may not generalise to the wider population

  This results in low population validity

  There have also been studies that show a difference in conformity between men and women
• Laboratory experiment

  because it was a laboratory experiment, it lacks ecological validity since judging blue slides is not something that people would do in their everyday lives

  therefore they may have believed that their answers would not matter if they got it wrong

  it lacked realism
• unethical

  participants were misled into believing that it was going to be a perception study

  this means they were unable to give properly informed consent
• laboratory experiment

  high levels of control over extraneous and situational variables

  this can allow for higher levels of replicability from other experimenters, increasing the validity of the study

  it also makes the study more reliable since there is less of a worry about external factors affecting the outcome
• used 192 women in groups of 6 along with some confederates

  showed them 36 slides of shades of blue
• moscovicis conversion theory

  suggests that minority and majority influence are different processes

  where the main factor enabling minority influence is consistency