Minority influence

• AO1 - definition of minority influence

  • Minority influence refers to how one person or a small group influences the beliefs and behaviour of other people.
  • The minority may influence just one person, or a group of people (the majority).
• AO1 - internalisation

  Minority influence leads to internalisation where both public and private behaviour/beliefs are changed.
• AO1 - consistency

  • The minority must be consistent in their views.
  • Thus consistency increases the amount of interest from other people.
  • Synchronic consistency: when people in the minority are all saying the same thing.
  • Diachronic consistency: when the minority have been saying the same thing for some time.
• AO1 - commitment

  • The minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause of views.
  • The minority may engage in extreme activity to draw attention to their view.
  • These extreme activities must create some risk to the minority as it shows greater commitment.
  • Majority groups will pay even more attention, which is the argumentation principle.
• AO1 - flexibility

  • The minority should balance consistency and flexibility so they don’t appear rigid.
  • Nemeth argued that being consistent and repeating the same behaviours is off-putting to the majority.
  • Instead, the minority should adapt their view and accept reasonable counter argument.
• AO1 - process of minority influence

  • If you hear something new, you may think more deeply about it.
  • Over more time, more people will switch from the majority to the minority - this is the snowball effect.
  • Gradually the minority view becomes the majority and social change has occurred.
• AO3 - ✔️research supporting consistency 


  • A researcher found a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion.
  • Wood et al conducted a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities seen as consistent were most influential.
  • Confirms that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.
• AO3 - ✔️research showing role of deeper processing 


  • Researchers gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants attitudes.
  • One group of participants then heard a minority group agree with it and the other group heard a majority group agree.
  • Participants then heard a conflicting view so attitudes were measured again.
  • Participants were less willing to change their opinions to the new conflicting views if they had listened to the minority group than if they listened to a majority group.
  • Suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and has a more enduring effect.
• AO3 - counterpoint; research showing role of deeper processing

  • In research studies, majority/minority groups have a clear distinction between one another.
  • Real world social influence situations are much more complicated.
  • E.g. majorities usually have a lot more power than minorities.
  • Therefore the findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world situations.
• AO3 - ✖️minority influence research often involves artificial tasks 


  • The task of identifying the colour of a slide, was far removed from how minorities try to change majority opinion in the real world.
  • In jury decision-making and political campaigning outcomes are more important, maybe a matter of life or death.
  • Means findings of minority influence studies are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real world social situations.