Minority Influence

• Minority influence is when one person or a small group of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. This leads to internalisation
• •Three processes make minority influence effective:

  1.Consistency – the minority needs to keep the same beliefs over time, and their members need to share the same beliefs. This draws attention to their views and makes the majority rethink theirs.
• •Three processes make minority influence effective:

  1.Commitment – the minority needs to show dedication to their position e.g. by making personal sacrifices. This shows that they’re not acting out of self-interest and draws even more attention to their views which makes the majority rethink theirs.
• •Three processes make minority influence effective:

  1.Flexibility – the minority needs to accept the possibility of compromise and accept valid counterarguments. This is so that they don’t seem unreasonable as this is off-putting for the majority.
• Consistency


  When people are first exposed to a minority with a differing view, they assume the minority is in error. However, if the minority adopt a consistent approach, others come to reassess the situation and consider the issue more carefully. After all, there must be a reason why the minority takes the position it does and is sufficiently confident to maintain it over time and with each other
• Consistency


  •Wood et al. carried out a meta-analysis of 97 studies of minority influence, and found that minorities who were perceived as being especially consistent in expressing their position were particularly influential.
• Commitment


  •Commitment is important in the influence process because it suggests certainty, confidence and courage in the face of a hostile majority. Because joining a minority inevitably has greater cost for the individual than staying with the majority, the degree of commitment shown by minority group members is typically greater.
• Commitment


  •It is difficult to dismiss a minority when it adopts an uncompromising and consistent commitment to its position.This greater commitment may then persuade majority group members to take them seriously, or even convert to the minority position
• Flexabity


  •Mugny suggests that flexibility is more effective at changing majority opinion than rigidity of arguments.•Because minorities are typically powerless compared to the majority, they must negotiate their position with the majority rather than try to enforce it.•Neither approach is particularly effective at persuading the majority to shift to the minority's position, but, claims Mugny, some degree of flexibility is more effective than none at all.
• Flexibility


  •Mugny distinguished between rigid and flexible negotiating styles, arguing that a rigid minority that refuses to compromise risks being perceived as dogmatic, i.e. narrow-minded and refusing to consider that other opinions might also be justified. However, a minority that is too flexible and too prepared to compromise risks being seen as inconsistent.
• The process of change & the snowball effect


  •The two C’s and a F offer a good explanation as to why people change their behaviour, and convert from a majority viewpoint to the minority view point.•Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority to the minority, and have been ‘converted’.
• The process of change & the snowball effect


  •The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. This is called the snowball effect.•Gradually the minority view becomes the majority view, meaning a change has taken place
• Limited real-world applications


  •Real-life social influence situations are much more complicated than in studies where the majority and minority are defined in terms of numbers.•For example, majorities often have more power and status than minorities. Minorities are very committed to their causes and have to be because of the very hostile opposition that they face. They can also be tight-knit groups who know each other very well and frequently turn to each other for support.
• Limited real-world applications


  •This suggests that research on minority influence does not reflect the complexity of real-life minority influence and therefore the results may not be externally valid and so may only tell us about minority influence in contrived situations. Therefore, the results may be of limited use in terms of real-world applications.
• Moscovici et al. Study: Procedure

  •Each group comprised four naive participants and a minority of two confederates. They were shown a series of blue slides that varied only in intensity and were asked to judge the colour of each slide.•In the 'consistent‘ experimental condition, the two confederates repeatedly called the blue slides green: i.e. they said 'green‘ on every trial.
• Moscovici et al. Study: Procedure

  •In the 'inconsistent‘ condition, the confederates called the slides green 'on two-thirds of the trials, and on the remaining one third of trials called the slides blue.•In a control condition, comprising six naïve ppts and no confederates, participants called the slides blue throughout.
• Moscovici: Findings


  •The findings showed that the consistent minority influenced the naïve participants to say green on over 8% of the trials.  Also, 32% of participants conformed to the minority at least once.•The inconsistent minority exerted very little influence, and did not differ significantly from the control group.