Minority influence and Social change

• Moscovici's minority influence study (1969):

  • Participants - Randomly selected.
  • Procedure - A lab experiment. 4 Participants (majority) in groups with 2 confederates (minority). Everyone was shown 36 blue sides (each a different shade), and were asked whether the slides were blue or green. Confederates said they were green on 2/3 of the trials, producing a consistent minority view. The number of times the real participants reported that the slide was only green was observed. A control group was also used consisting of participants only (no confederates).
• Moscovici's minority influence study (1969):

  • Findings - When confederates were consistent in their answers, 8% of participants said the slides were green. However, when inconsistent, 1% of participants said the slides were green. This shows a consistency is crucial for a minority to exert minimum influence on a majority.
• Factors affecting minority influence:

  • Moscovici demonstrated how the role of consistency can affect the majority, as they are more likely to be persuaded if the minority is consistent. This is because it makes the opposition think that the views of the minority are real and serious enough to pay attention to (the argumentation principle).
• Diachronic consistency - When a group remains consistent over time and don't change their views.

  This forces the opposition to rethink their own views repeatedly over time and generates more doubt due to the conflicting views, allowing more opportunity to be influenced.
• Synchronic consistency - When a group is consistent between all the members so everyone has the same views and agree/ support each other.

  This can convince the majority that there is something worth agreeing with.
• Factors affecting minority influence:

  • Commitment - being dedicated to a cause or idea for a long time. The majority is more likely to be influenced when the minority is committed because when they have so much passion and confidence in their point of view, it suggests their view may be valid and so encourages them to explore why, offering more of an opportunity to be influenced.
• Factors affecting minority influence:

  • Flexibility - Able to accept others views and opinions, and to be open to new ideas. Being too consistent can suggest the minority is inflexible, uncompromising and irrational, making their arguments less appealing to the majority. However, if they appear as flexible, they are less likely to be seen as extremists and more likely to be seen as reasonable and cooperative.
• Strengths of minority influence:

  • Martin et al (2003) demonstrated that there is a greater degree of internalisation of a minority view compared to majority view. In his study, one group heard the opinion of a minority group, while the other heard the opinion of a majority group. The group who heard the minority view were less likely to change their own views, suggesting that a minority is more powerful because it holds risks (the argumentation principle), forcing the audience to reconsider their own views.
• Strength of minority influence:

  • Real life application - Consistency, commitment and flexibility can inform minority groups the best way to behave in order to exert a maximum amount of influence. BUT, the majority tend to be larger groups with more connections and power, so these three steps may not always be enough to change the opinion of the audience.
• Limitation of minority influence:

  • Lacks mundane realism - An issue with Moscovici's study is the reliance on artificial tasks and stimuli. Such methodology lacks mundane realism as the tasks do not reflect scenarios that minority groups would act in real life. This also means that the findings are likely to lack ecological validity because the extent to which the results can be generalised are limited.
• Social influence processes are strategies that can cause social change, which is when there is a shift in the beliefs of an entire population, and the previously widely accepted norm changes to something new. These strategies include utilising minority influence, encouraging internal locus of controls and disobedience to authority.
• An example of minority influence is the shift in attitudes towards race and sexuality. Being racist and homophobic used to be the norm, but after influences from minority groups it became accepted as the new norm to accept these people. Those who continue to be racist and homophobic are pressured to hide or change. Hateful acts as such are now illegal.
• Limitations of social change:

  • Time consuming and limited effectiveness - Social change, as argued by Nemeth (1986), is a slow process and produced fragile effects. Argued the majority are not exposed to the main issue at hand so it is not resolved. The process being timely means the effects (social change) are delayed. This suggests that social change through minority influence cannot be relied upon to bring long-standing changes.
• Limitations of social change:

  • Limited effectiveness - Bashir suggests that social barriers are largely due to the stereotypes many have. Example - despite the obvious perks to recycling, many are still unwilling to admit that they recycle in fear of being labelled as 'weird' or a 'tree-hugger'. This suggests that minority and social influences are not always completely effective because they cannot tackle these kinds of issues.
• Limitations of social change:

  • Mackie suggests that the role of minority influence is limited as we are more likely to change our own views if the majority is different to our own. This is because we often take comfort knowing that so many other people share our view that when they don't, we become unsettled and are forced to deeply process this change.
• The snowball effect is when minorities begin to change the majority opinions. This starts as a slow process as each person only converts a few members. However, this rate of conversion picks up speed as more of the majority begin to convert. Additionally, the process of conversion also speeds up as minority views become more socially accepted.
• Social crypto-amnesia describes how society adopts the ideas form a minority group, which then become the social norm. The sacrifices made by these minorities are examples of positive social change, but they are usually forgotten over time.