minority influence

• minority influence:

  a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours. leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours
• consistency:

  minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, both over time (diachronic) and between all the individuals (synchronic) that form the minority. consistency is effective as it draws attention to the minority view
• commitment:

  minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their position, for example, by making personal sacrifices (augmentation principle). this is effective as it shows the minority is not acting out of self interest
• flexibility:

  relentless consistency could be counter productive if it is seen by the majority as unbending and unreasonable. therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise
• minority influence refers to situations where 1 person/a small group of people influence the beliefs and behaviours of others. different from conformity. minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation as both public and private beliefs are changed by the process. moscovici (1969) first studied this process in his colour perception study
• processes in minority influence; consistency:


  the minority must be consistent in their views as over time this consistency increases the amount of interest from other people. synchronic consistency: all members are saying the same thing. diachronic consistency: members have been saying the same thing over time. by being consistent, the minority makes other people rethink their own views
• processes in minority influence; commitment:


  the minority must show commitment to their cause/views. sometimes minorities may take part in extreme activities to draw attention to their cause - these extreme activities must present some risk to the minority as this shows greater commitment which makes the majority pay even more attention - augmentation principle
• processes in minority influence; flexibility:


  nemeth argued that consistency can be off putting so it's not the only important factor in minority influence. this is because by itself it's unlikely to gain many converts to the minority position. instead, minority members need to be prepared to adapt their views and accept reasonable/valid counterarguments - a balance between consistency and flexibility
• explaining the process of change:


  all 3 processes make people think about the minority's views as hearing something new usually makes you think about it more deeply, especially if the source of this new information is consistent, committed, and flexible. this deeper processing is important in the process of conversion to the minority viewpoint. the more people that have been converted, the faster the rate of conversion - snowball effect. gradually the minority view becomes the majority view
• evaluating minority influence; research support for consistency:


  strength

  • research evidence demonstrates the importance of consistency
  • moscovici's (1969) colour perception study showed that a consistent minority had a greater effect on changing the majority's views than an inconsistent opinion
  • wood (1994) carried out a meta analysis of 100 similar studies and also found that consistent minorities were the most influential
  • therefore presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for minority influence
• evaluating minority influence; research support for deeper processing:


  strength

  • evidence shows deeper processing is involved in minority influence
  • martin (2003) presented people with a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their agreement when 1 group heard a minority agree, whilst the other heard the majority agree, they were then presented a conflicted view
  • people were less willing to change their view if they heard the minority agree
  • therefore this supports the central argument of how minority influence works as the minority message had been deeply processed
• evaluating minority influence; research support for deeper processing;


  counterpoint

  • studies such as martin (2003) make clear distinctions between the majority and the minority in a controlled way
  • however real world social influence situations are much more complicated - such as majorities having more power than minorities, features like these are absent from minority influence research
  • therefore martin's findings are limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world situations
• evaluating minority influence; artificial tasks:


  limitation

  • tasks involved in research are often just as artificial as asch's line task
  • moscovici asked participants to name the colour of a slide which is far removed from how minorities attempt to change behaviours in real life as the outcomes are vastly more important
  • therefore the findings in minority influence research lack external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world social situations
• evaluating minority influence; power of minority influence:


  extra

  • in moscovici's study, agreement with a consistent minority was only 8% which suggests minority influence is not a useful concept
  • however when participants wrote their answers down privately they agreed with the minority more
• moscovici's (1969) study:


  • moscovici conducted a study where groups of 6 were asked to say whether 36 blue slides were blue or green
  • each group had 2 confederates which consistently said the slides were green
  • participants said the slides were green 8.42% of trials
  • second group of participants were presented with an inconsistent minority where confederates said the slides were green 2/3 of the time
  • decreased the amount of times the participants said the slides were green to 1.25%
  • for the control group there were no confederates and participants only said the slide was green 0.25% of trials