Minority influence

• Minority influence… a form of social influence in which a minority (sometimes just one person) persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Leads to internalisation, in which we agree publicly and privately with the minority view.
• There is an argument that minorities can only be successful if they are consistent. The minority has to keep saying the same message over time, this consistency increases the amount of interest from other people (social conflict) and gets other to start to rethink their own opinions (Maybe they’ve got a point). This is due to two types of consistency: • Synchronic consistency: They're all saying the same thing • Diachronic consistency: They've been saying the same thing for a long period of time
• Minorities are most successful when they are committed to their views • Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views • It is important that these activities presents some risk/sacrifice, so people take them more seriously by showing their dedicated
• Minorities


  Have a hard job to change opinions
• Being completely consistent all the time


  May actually give the impression that the minority is rigid (off-putting/extreme) - which is undesirable
• If a minority is to change public opinion


  • They will need to show some flexibility
  • Members of the minority group need to be prepared to amend their views and accept reasonable counterarguments
• The Process of Change - The Snowball Effect


  1. The majority is influenced by the minority gradually

  2. Following consistency, commitment and flexibility the individual becomes 'converted'

  3. The more that are converted, the faster the rate of change
• Consistency


  Importance of consistency
• Minority opinion


  • Moscovici et al.'s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion
  • Wood et al. (1994) carried out a meta-analyses of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential
• Consistency


  Major factor in minority influence
• Artificial tasks


  Limitation of minority influence research
• Artificial tasks


  • Jury decision making
  • Political campaigning
• Artificial tasks


  Lack external validity, studies are limited in what they can tell us about how a minority works in real life social situations
• One of the most

  influential experiments

  of minority influence was

  conducted by Moscovici

  (1969). He wanted to see

  if a consistent minority

  could influence the

  majority to give an

  incorrect answer, in a

  colour perception task
• His sample consisted of female participants, the participants were placed in groups of six and shown 36 slides, which were all varying shades of blue. The participants had state out loud the colour of each slide. In each group there was two confederates. In the first group the two confederates consistently said the slides were green for every slide. In the second group the two confederates were inconsistent and answered green 24 times and blue 12 times.
• In the consistent condition, the real participants agreed on 8.42% of the trials, whereas in the inconsistent condition, the real participants only agreed on 1.25% of the trials. This shows that a consistent minority were 6.95% more successful in changing the opinion of the majority than an inconsistent minority.
• Low Ecological

  Moscovici used a very insignificant exercise, i.e. a silly disagreement over a slide that is very obviously blue. This is not the sort of thing we normally disagree over, so does it tell us anything about minority influence works in real life situations The presence of demand characteristics lowers the internal validity of the study (it does not measure what it is meant to measure).
• Population Validity

  Moscovici used a bias sample of 172 female participants from America – they only tell us about the behaviour of female students. As a result, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, for example male participants, and we cannot conclude that male participants would respond to minority influence in the same way. Furthermore, research often suggests that females are more likely to conform than males, Therefore, further research is required to determine the effect of minority influence on male participants.
• Ethical Issues

  Moscovici has also been criticised for deceiving his participants, as participants were told that they were taking part in a colour perception test. This means that Moscovici did not gain full informed consent. Although it is seen as unethical to deceive participants, Moscovici’s experiment required deception in order to achieve valid results. If the participants were aware of the true aim, they might have displayed demand characteristic
• Strength of Moscovici's research


  • He carried out his study under controlled laboratory conditions
• Controlled laboratory conditions


  • Able to isolate and control the variables that were important so he could see the effects on the participants' willingness to remain independent or to conform to the minority
• Advantage of controlled conditions

  The close control Moscovici used means that the experiment could be replicated by other psychologists to see whether similar or different results are obtained under the same conditions
• If the same results are found


  This adds to the reliability of the conclusions that were made about why people conform
• What is minority influence?

  type of social influence where a small group of people (the minority) persuade others (the majority) to adopt their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.
• What are the key factors that affect the effectiveness of minority influence?

  Consistency, commitment, and flexibility.
• How does consistency affect minority influence?

  When the minority is consistent in their views, it shows confidence and commitment, making their argument more persuasive.
• How does commitment enhance minority influence?

  Commitment demonstrates dedication, often through personal sacrifice, which increases the likelihood of others being persuaded.
• Why is flexibility important in minority influence?

  Being overly rigid can be off-putting. A degree of flexibility shows willingness to compromise, which makes the minority more appealing.
• What did Moscovici's 1969 study investigate?


  The role of consistency in minority influence.
• Outline the procedure of Moscovici's study.

  Participants were shown blue slides of varying intensity and asked to identify the color. Inconsistent and consistent minority conditions were used to test influence.
• What were the results of Moscovici's study?

  A consistent minority influenced participants to say "green" 8.4% of the time, compared to 1.25% in the inconsistent condition.