minority influence and social change

• minority influence

  one person or group of small people influence the beliefs and behaviours of other people
• majority influence

  conformity
• minority influence

  • most likely to lead to internalisation, meaning a persons public and private beliefs are changed
• research shows that consistency is the most important behavioural characteristic that the minority should possess in order to influence the majority
• minority influence characteristics

  • consistency
  • commitment
  • flexibility
• consistency

  • diachronic consistency - person maintains a consistent position over time
  • synchronic consistency - agreement among members of the minority group
  • consistent in opposition to the majority
  • most powerful characteristic
• commitment

  • augmentation principle - someone performs an action when there are known constraints, meaning their motive for acting is considered to be stronger
  • the will to act when there are consequences
  • risk to the minority causes the majority to pay attention
  • demonstrate their dedication to the cause
• flexibility

  • need to find a balance between consistency and flexibility
  • if a group is consistent all the time- it gives the impression that the minority is rigid/ unbending, which is undesirable
  • the minority group need to be prepared to amend their views and accept reasonable counterarguments
  • nemeth 1986 - if consistency is perceived as negatively, the minority is viewed as dogmatic and unbending
• snowball effect

  • the majority is influenced by the minority gradually, so become converted to the new idea
  • the more that are converted, the faster the rate of conversion
• moscovici et al (1969) - consistency

  3 groups of 6 people, view a set of 36 blue coloured slides with barying intensity then asked to state whether it is blue or green

  • group 1 - 2 confederates who answered green on the 2nd and 3rd trial, 32% ppt answered the same as minority on at least 1 trial
  • group 2 - ppt exposed to an inconsistent minority, agreement fell to 1.25%
  • group 3 (control group) - no confederates, ppt gave the wrong answer on 0.25% of trials
• nemeth and brilmayer (1987)

  • role of flexibility, in jury situation- discuss amount of compensation for someone involved in ski lift accident
  • confederate put forward alternative view and refused to change position - no effect on other group members
  • confederate who compromised and showed a degree of shift towards the majority - did exert and influence on rest of group
  • only evident for those who shifted late in negations (perceived as flexible) rather than those who shifted earlier (perceived as 'cave in' to majority)
  • c- flexibility towards the endof a negation is effective in getting the point across (e.g pride protests- they compromised for civil partnerships first)
• artificial tasks

  • tasks involved do not reflect real life
  • lab studies are not important so the findings are different
  • for important decisions - likely to be autonomous
  • doesn't reflect real life, as when people care about things, they behave differently
  • means less external validity
• research support for internalisation

  moscovici blue green slide variation - ppt allowed to answer in private

  • greater, private agreement with the minority
  • many sympathise with the majority view, but they are not confident enough to publicly support
• lab studies don't apply to real life as they are artificial
• real life examples

  • suffragettes
  • gay rights
• social change

  • society adopts a new way of behaving
  • this becomes widely accepted as the 'norm'
• social change through minority influence (6 marks)

  David Attenbrough Can't Dab + Send DoPe Ass Silly SnapChats

  • draw attention
  • consistency- diachronically + synchronically
  • deeper processing/ cognitive conflict
  • augmentation principle
  • snowball effect
  • social cryptomnesia
• draw attention

  • if we are exposed to views of a minority, it draws attention to the cause
  • if the view is different, this causes a conflict which we want to reduce
  • eg - just stop oil, throw orange paint and sat in the roads
• consistency - diachronically + synchronically

  • when minority is fighting for social change, they seem more influential if they are consistent
  • must express arguments consistently over time (diachronically) and across each other (synchronically) they are taken more seriously and seen to truly believe in the cause
• deeper processing/ cognitive conflict

  • two inconsistent thoughts from a cognitive conflict, causes people to start thinking about the issue on a deeper level and about the injustice of such issues
• augmentation principle

  • when there are risks involved in pushing forward an argument - those who express these views, are taken more seriously
  • if the minority members are willing to take consequences, the impact is increased
  • risking abuse, media attention, imprisonment or death
  • e.g. "free riders" - challenged black/ white schisms on buses and faced abuse
• snowball effect

  • minority eventually gains attention of more more people, who will start to agree with their arguments
  • leads to a change from minority to majority support and so leads to social change
  • gradual

  civil rights - martin luther king, continued to press for changes and gradually gained the attention of US government

  • laws were passed - support for civil rights became the majority
• social cryptomnesia

  • people have a memory that change has occurred, but don't remember how it happened
• ao3 time lag

  • minority influence - slower process, due to snowball affect
  • takes longer to see change, but this leads to internalisation which is permanent public and private view change
  • where there is majority influence, it is a fast change that leads to compliance - more temporary change
• ao3 bashir et al

  • ppt - less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways, because they didn't want to be associated with the stereotypes of the minority 'environmentalists' as they were described in negative ways
• ao3 devaints

  • spokespeople campaigning, can deter people from pursuing change, acting as deviants (e.g that vegan teacher)
• ao3 schultz 2008

  • normative social influence - leads to social change
  • signs read '75% of hotel guests reuse towels' this led participants to decrease their need for towels by 25%, this is as they were told it was the norm
• ao3 moscovici conversion theory

  • argued that minority influence involves distinct cognitive processes, which lead to deeper processing and potential internal attitude change (conversion) making us more likely to internalise the idea
  • majority influence, primarily involves public compliance. 
• ao3 methodology

  research on social change, draws from independent behaviour shown in milgram, asch and moscovici

  methodology is criticised due to...

  • artificial stimuli, meaning a lack of mundane realism and ecological validity
  • lab studies, ppt work out the aims of study meaning demand characteristics and lack internal validity

  findings can't be generalised
• social influence research has helped us to understand the psychological processes involved in bringing about social change - this has implications for the future, in that knowledge of these processes can be applied to help bring about positive social changes society
• people who initiate social change are likely to have an internal locus of control me and I believe they are in control of events in the life not some external force
• social change is usually a result of minority influence. moscovici found that consistency is the most important factor in deciding whether the minority are influential or not, this means that the minority must be clear on what they're asking for - by not changing their minds or disagreement amongst themselves. moscovici found that flexibility and commitment also important factors
• it has been found that once the minority begins to persuade people round to their way of thinking, a snowball effect begins to happen. this means that more more people adopt the minority opinion, until gradually the minority becomes the majority. the majority opinion then becomes law, and people have to obey this law. once this happens the minority opinion becomes the dominant position in society, and people often do not remember where that opinion originated from - this process is known as crypto amnesia
• how can conformity (majority influence) lead to social change?

  • NSI - using norms in society to exert pressure on others to conform
  • health or environmental campaigns, can use this to cause change
  • for example 'most teenagers don't smoke'
  • scultz 2008
• discuss how can obedience lead to social change?

  • using laws to exert social change
  • change of laws - smoking bans, using phones, driving with seat belts, plastic straw ban, masks/ lockdown