Minority influence:

• | Minority influence: consistency, commitment and flexibility A01

  Consistency:

  • if the minority are able to repeat the same message over and over again (diachronic consistency) the message becomes strong

  Commitment:

  • if the minority are able to suffer and still hold their beliefs, members from the majority are more likely to take them seriously. This is known as argumentative principle.

  Flexibility:
• | Minority influence: consistency, commitment and flexibility A03

  • Nemeth (1986) flexibility. When a confederate (minority) was inflexible in arguing for a low level of compensation for a ski accident, 3 participants were less likely to change their amount than if a confederate was flexible.
• Minority influence:


  refers to situations where one person or a small group of people influences the beliefs and behaviour of other people.

  • This is distinct from conformity where the majority is doing the influencing
  • Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation - both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed by the process.
• Flexibility:


  Nemeth (1986) argued that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be off-putting

  Someone who is extremely consistent, who simply repeats the same old arguments and behaviours again and again may be seen as rigid

  This approach on its own is unlikely to gain many converts to the minority position. Instead, members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments. The key is to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility.
• Explaining the process of change

  Hearing something u agree with doesn't make u stop and think but if its something new then u might think more deeply about it especially if the source of this other view is consistent committed and flexible

  This deeper processing is important in the process of conversion to a different minority viewpoint

  Over time increasing numbers of people switch from the majority position to the minority position - conversion

  The more this happens the faster the rate of conversion called the snowball effect

  Gradually the minority view has become the majority view
• Moscovici et al 1969 studied a group of 6 people was asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity and state whether the it was blue or green

  In each group there were 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green true pp gave the wrong answer green on 8.42% of the trials

  2nd group of pp exposed to an inconsistent minority confederates said green 24 times and blue 12 times Agreement with the answer green fell to 1.25%

  3rd control group no confederates and all pp had to do was identify the colour of each slide got it wrong on just 0.25% of trials