Minority Influence

• Define minority influence?

  Refers to situations where one person or a small group of people influences the behaviours and opinions of other people. It is most likely to lead to internalisation
• AO1: Moscovici (1969) background info

  Research into minority influence all began with Moscovici. He believed that Asch had put too much emphasis on the notion that the majority in a group has a large influence on the minority. He believed it is also possible for a minority to influence the majority and so he conducted his famous 1969 study
• Moscovici et al (1969) Blue-Green Study - Method

  Method:

  • 172 American female volunteers assigned either condition A/B
  • Re-run of Asch's experiment, but in reverse
  • Instead of 1 ppt amongst a majority of confederates, in each group he placed 2 confederates together with 4 genuine ppts
  • The ppts were first given eye tests to ensure they were not colour-blind.
  • They were shown 36 slides which were clearly different shades of blue and asked to state the colour of each slide out loud
  • Condition A: Confederates consistently answered green for each of the 36 slides
  • Condition B: Confederates answered green 24 times and blue 12 times
• Blue-Green Study results + conclusion

  Results:

  • Condition A: minority had an effect on the majority (8.42%)
  • Condition B: minority had an effect on the majority (only 1.25% said green)

  Conclusion:

  • Minorities can influence a majority, but not all the time, and only when they behave in certain ways (such as consistency).
• Disclaimer for blue-green study

  this study is for evaluative purposes, you can briefly mention how it brought about the conversion theory but do not recite this study for AO1 if asked a question on minority influence
• AO1: Moscovici's conversion theory - intro

  • minorities can influence a majority, but not all the time, and only when they behave in certain ways
  • there are 3 main factors about the minority's view that make the majority change their own: consistency, commitment, flexibility
• Consistency

  If a minority are consistent with their views, this can influence the majority to change their own views. Consistency can either be:

  • Synchronic consistency (they are all saying the same thing)
  • Diachronic consistency (they've been saying the same thing for some time now)

  Example:

  The suffragettes were consistent in their views / messages for many years (1903-1928). Despite opposition they continued protesting and lobbying until they convinced society that women were entitled to vote
• Commitment

  • Sometimes minorities have to take extreme action to get their viewpoint across
  • It is important they put the minority at risk to show their commitment to the cause
  • Majorities are then likely to pay attention (augmentation principle)

  Example:

  Emily Davison jumped in front of the King's Horse at the Epsom Derby to show her commitment to women's rights to vote. Such extreme sacrifices were followed by public outrage and the government started to listen
• Flexibility

  • Being too rigid will have opposite effect - too much consistency will make the majority less interested in the cause (Nemeth, 1986)
  • Instead, minorities should adapt their view and accept reasonable and valid counter-arguments
  • Balance is key!

  Example:

  The suffragettes were flexible in the age limit for women voting.

  1918: women 30+ can vote (still not equal because men 21+ could vote)

  1928: women 21+ can vote
• AO1: Conversion theory: how does the change occur?

  • If the information is new people are more likely to think about the message if they have never heard it before
  • If the minority group shows consistency, commitment and flexibility, the process of social change begins
  • Eventually, as more people begin to be swayed by the message, a phenomenon called the snowball effect occurs which means the message begins to spread quicker and eventually becomes the majority view.
• Strength of the conversion theory of minority influence - importance of consistency

  P: research demonstrating the importance of consistency in social change

  E: Moscovici et al's blue/green slide study found that when the confederates (minority) consistently answered incorrectly 100% of the time, 8.42% of the majority did too, as opposed to when the confederates answered incorrectly 66% of the time, just 1.25% of the majority did too

  Ex: A consistent minority opinion has a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion.

  L: the validity of Moscovici's consistency principle as a requirement for the minority influencing majority is strengthened

  C: study has been criticised for lacking population validity as his sample was 172 American females, therefore findings cannot be generalised to males or cultures. + Agreement with consistent minority was low 8%, suggesting M.I is rare + not useful concept
• Strength of conversion theory of Minority influence - leads to internalisation

  P: Research supporting the idea that minority influence leads to internalisation

  E: Martin et al tested 53 British undergraduates who were all moderately in favour of voluntary euthanasia. ppts were exposed to a counter-attitudinal message (anti-voluntary euthanasia) from either a minority group (condition A) or a majority group (condition B). It was found that out of those ppts who changed their view to anti-voluntary euthanasia, it was those in the minority condition that held stronger anti attitudes

  Ex: ppts processed the viewpoint deeper if they heard it from the minority group than the majority

  L: such internalisation from the minority, supports the conversion's theory central argument about how influence works, increasing its validity
• Counterargument for strength of minority influence - leads to internalisation

  However, Maass et al suggests that minority influence is only successful if the minority is similar to the majority, in terms of group membership (age, gender, sexuality etc.) Perhaps if Martin et al replicated his study on a sample that did not share group membership (all undergraduates at the same university) findings would be different. ​
• Weakness of the conversion theory - artificial

  P: Moscovici's study and other minority influence studies are criticised for being too artificial

  E: Moscovici et al's confederates (minority) were trying to convince the majority to say a slide was green when it was actually blue. This study is just one e.g. of how research is far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life

  Ex: for e.g. in real life scenarios like political campaigning, majorities often have great power and status, whereas minorities often face oppression and outcomes are much more important and sometimes a matter of life or death

  L: findings of M.I. studies are lacking in ecological validity and do not tell us about how M.I works in real life situations

  C: historical social movements provide evidence that principles of M.I. still apply in real life. For e.g. the Suffragettes using ideas like C.C.F to sway public opinion