Minority influence

• Minority influence


  A minority changes the opinions of others through internalisation
• Minority influence


  • Leads to internalisation - both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed
  • Occurs through three processes: consistency, commitment, flexibility
• Consistency (Means the minority view gains more interest)


  • Synchronic consistency (people in the minority are all saying the same thing)
  • Diachronic consistency (they've been saying the same thing for some time)
• Commitment (Helps gain attention through extreme activities)


  • Activities must create some risk to the minority to demonstrate commitment to the cause
  • Augmentation principle: majority pay even more attention ('Wow he must really believe in what he's saying so perhaps I ought to consider his view')
• Flexibility (balancing consistency and flexibility to not seem rigid) : Nemeth argued that being consistent and repeating the same arguments and behaviours is seen as rigid and off putting to the majority. Instead the minority should adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter arguments
• Snowball effect


  The minority becomes the majority over time, as more people become 'converted' and switch from the minority to the majority
• KEY STUDY : MOSCOVICI ET AL The blue - green slides 

  PROCEDURE : 

  • • a group of six people viewed a set of 36 blue green coloured slides varying in intensity, then stated whether the slides were blue or green. 
  • • The study had three conditions : 1. Confederates consistently said the slides were green   2. Confederates were inconsistent about the colour of the slides.   3. A control group - no confederates 
• KEY STUDY : MOSCOVICI ET AL - The blue - green slides

  Findings and conclusions 

  • • consistent minority condition : participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials ; 32% gave the same answer on at least on trial. 
  • • Inconsistent minority condition : agreement fell to 1.25% 
  • • Control group : participants wrongly identified colour 0.25% of the time 
• strength AO3

  Research support for consistency

  • • Serge Moscovici et al found a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion. Wood et al conducted a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities seen as being consistent were most influential. This confirms that consistency is major factor in minority influence. 
• Limitation AO3

  minority influence research often involves artificial tasks

  • • moscovicis tasks was identifying the colour of a slide, far removed from how minorities try to change majority opinion in real life. In jury decision making and political campaigning, outcomes are vastly more important, maybe a matter of life or death. Findings of studies lack external validity and are limited in what they tell us about how minority influence works in real life situations. 
• AO3

  The real ‘value’ of minority influence

  • • Nemeth (2010) argues that dissent, in the form of minority opinion, ‘opens’ the mind. 
  • • As a result of exposure to a minority position, people search for information, consider more options, make better decisions, and are more creative. They liberate people to say what they believe and they stimulate divergent and creative thought even when they are wrong


  . This view is supported by the work of Van Dyne and Saavedra (1996), studied the role of dissent in work groups, groups had improved decision quality when exposed to a minority perspective
• Limitation AO3

  Applications of minority influence research are limited

  • • studies make a clear distinction between majority and minority but real life situations are more complicated. The difference is about more than just numbers. Majorities usually have power and status. Minorities are committed and tight knit groups and support each other. Minority influence research rarely reflects the dynamics of these groups so findings may not apply to real life minority influence situations which exert a more powerful influence.