minority influence

• minority influence


  minority of people persuade others in majority to adopt beliefs, attitudes or behaviours - minority influence most likely to lead to internalisation where both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed
• Moscovici research into minority influence - aim and method

  AIM - to test whether minority group were more likely to influence majority group into giving incorrect answer on colour perception test if consistent in their views

  METHOD - 172 participants had eyesight tested - groups of six people (4 participants and 2 confederates) - presented with 36 slides clearly different shades of blue asked what colour slide was - confederates stated they were green (incorrect) every time (consistent) - other condition, confederates answered green 24 times and blue 12 times (inconsistent condition)
• Moscovici research into minority influence - findings and conclusion

  FINDINGS - found in consistent condition 1.25% of participant's answers were green in consistent condition 8.42% of answers green - control condition with no confederates 0.25% incorrect answers given

  CONCLUSION - if a minority group wants to influence majority group they need to be consistent in their views
• MOSCOVICI EVALUATION - well controlled

  controlled setting of laboratory made it easy to control extraneous variables - moscovici able to control lighting and slides used to ensure participants could clearly judge colour of slides - study measured what it intended to so has high internal validity
• MOSCOVICI EVALUATION - low ecological validity 


  laboratory setting viewed as artificial setting doesn't represent real life - for example, participants may ask why they were giving the wrong answer in a real life situation - findings may not generalise to real life minority influence situations
• MOSCOVICI EVALUATION - high demand characteristics 


  participants aware they're taking part in a study, may have behaved unnaturally - may have tried to please moscovici by behaving in a way they thought they were intended to by conforming - gives misleading results and lowers the internal validity
• MOSCOVICI EVALUATION - criticised for using deception


  criticised for deliberately misleading participants - Moscovici told participants, everyone sat around the table were participants when some were confederates may have caused some to feel embarrassed and foolish after the experiment - goes against ethical code of conduct - however wouldn't have been able to obtain realistic results if he hadn't used deception
• Factors involved - consistency


  minority group is more likely to influence majority if they're consistent in their views - can be agreement between people (synchronic consistency - all saying the same thing) could be consistency over time (diachronic - saying the same thing for some time) - leads majority to doubt themselves which can lead to behaviour change
• CONSISTENCY EVALUATION - Moscovici 


  found when minority of confederates consistently said blue slides were green (incorrect) had larger influence over majority group of participants (8.4%) than when they were inconsistent (1.25%) - suggests minorities have more influence over majority when they're consistent
• CONSISTENCY EVALUATION - Wood

  carried out meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies - found minorities who are seen as being consistent were most influential - great deal of evidence to support role of consistency in minority influence
• Factors involved - commitment

  some minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views - must be at some risk to minority as it demonstrates commitment to the cause - majority pay even more attention to minority issue (augmentation principle)
• COMMITMENT EVALUATION - Xie

  found when participants communicated on social network with people committed to an alternative viewpoint to their own, had the most significant influence on them adopting new point of view - supports importance of commitment in minority influence
• COMMITMENT EVALUATION - based on research with low ecological validity


  laboratory setting viewed as artificial as it doesn't represent real life - real life minority groups usually arguing in favour of important social issues rather than more trivial tasks such as colour judgement or discussions on social networks - findings may not generalise to real life minority influence situations
• Factors involved - flexibility

  Nemeth - downside of being consistent and repeating same argument is it can be seen as rigid and unreasonable - members of minority to be prepared to adapt point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguments - minority influence more effective if minority show flexibility and willingness to compromise
• FLEXIBILITY EVALUATION - Nemeth and Brilmayer

  tested mock jury situation where group members discussed amount of compensation to be paid to someone in ski lift accident - found when confederate put forward alternative point of view and refused to change his position had no influence on group, when showing flexibility and compromised had an influence on group - suggests flexibility may play an important role in minority influence
• FLEXIBILITY EVALUATION - real life minority groups more complicated 


  there is more involved in difference between minority and majority than numbers - majorities usually have much more power and status than minorities whilst minorities can be tight-knit groups whose members know each other very well and turn to each other for support - may over simplify processes involved