AO3 - Minority Influence

• Research to support consistency from a minority influence was conducted by Moscovici et al. Two confederates sat with a majority of 6 participants, were shown blue slides that differed in intensity and were asked to state the colour. When the minority consistently called the blue slides green, participants gave the same wrong answer 8% of the time, however when the minority were inconsistent, participants have the wrong answer 1% of the time. Therefore supporting the notion that consistency is important when a minority influences a majority.
• However, Moscovici's study lacks mundane realism as it is an artificial task of stating a colour on a slide. This makes it difficult to generalise the findings to explain how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life social situations where outcomes are more important, for example a minority may be less influential in a jury when deciding upon a verdict for a serious crime. Therefore lowering the external validity of research into minority influence.
• Research to support flexibility was conducted by Nemeth and Brilmayer. They created a mock jury situation to decide on the amount of compensation to be paid to someone in a ski lift accident. When a confederate put forward an alternative point of view and refused to change his position, this had no effect on the other members. However, a confederate who compromised did have an influence on the rest of the group. Therefore, as the confederate was flexible in his opinion, he was able to change majority opinion, supporting the idea that flexibility is an important feature of minority influence.