Minority Influence

• What is minority Influence?

  when 1 person or a small group influence the belief/ behaviour of others

  --> those influenced can lead to internalisation
• Name 3 ways Minority Influence can happen.

  • Consistency
  • Commitment
  • Flexibility
• How does Consistency help minority influence?

  -> minority must be consistent with their views - increases the interest of other people

  • Synchronic consistency - been saying the same thing
  • Diachronic consistency - been saying the same thing for some time
  • --> Makes people overthink their views
• How does commitment help M.I?

  -> minority must demonstrate their dedication to their view - draws attention

  • can involve extreme activities - cause some personal risks

  --> augmentation principle
• How does Flexibility help M.I?

  -> Nemeth - believe consistency can be interpreted negatively -> being consistent/repeating behaviour seen as dogmatic & inflexible --> end up putting of majority

  --> MINORITY need to adapt their POV & accept reasonable & valid counter-arguments

  • KEY to have balance between consistency and flexibility - a COMPROMISE
• What is the process of change?

  When all 3 factors combined make people think about the minorities view/cause
• How does the process of change work?

  -> hearing something new cause us to think more deeply about

  >> 'deeper processing' - important in conversion to minority viewpoint

  -> over time causes a switch to minority - soon minority will become majority

  • called the 'SNOWBALL EFFECT'
• Who conducted a research on M.I?

  Moscovici - Blue - green slide study
• Explain the process of the study?

  -> 172 women in groups of 6 told to judge the colour of 36 blue slides - the blue varied in intensity

  >> told to say if it was either blue or green

  -> was 2 confederates in each group - said slides were green each time
• Explain the findings of the study.

  -> Participants agreed to the minority 8.4% of the trials

  >> confeds were consistent and committed to keep saying the slides were green each trial
• What did the confederates do in the 2nd group?

  -> confederates were inconsistent with their colour choice

  >> agreement fell to 1.25%
• LIMITATION (study) - Bias

  -> Moscovici uses a bias sample - 172 women - gender/culture bias

  -> the results gained is unable to generalise to other populations

  >>male participants -> cannot conclude males would do the same

  • Research by NETO suggested females conform more than males as they have a greater need for social approval
• STRENGTH - research support for consistency

  -> Moscovici study - the consistent minor opinion had greater effect on changing views of other people than the inconsistent opinion

  -> Wood - meta analysis on 100 similar studies

  >> found that minorities that were consistent was most influential

  • having a consistent view is the minimum requirement for minority to influence majority