Minority influence

• Minority Influence

  - Form of social influence in which a minority of people (sometimes just 1) persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Leads to internalisation or conversion, private attitudes changed in public too
• Consistency


  - Minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, over time and between the individuals forming the minority. Is effective because it draws attention to the minority view

  - Synchronic consitency- they're all saying the same thing

  - Diachronic consistency- they've been saying the same thing for some time now

  - Such consistency can make others start to rethink and agree ( 'Maybe they've got a point if they all think this way')
• Commitment


  - Minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their position, e.g. making personal sacrifices. This is effective behaviour as it shows the minority isn't acting out of self- interest

  - It demonstrates commitment and the majority group then pay more attention- called the augmentation principle
• Flexibility


  - Relentless consistency could be counterproductive if it seen by the majority as unbending and unreasonable. Therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise

  - Nemeth (1986) consistency isn't the only important factor can be interpreted negatively, too much can be off-putting

  - Need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguements

  - Need to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility
• The Process of Change

  - If you hear something new that you don't agree with, you might think about it, especially if the source is consistent and passionate. It is the deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority viewpoint

  - Over time, increasing nos. of people switch from the majority to the minority. Have become 'converted', more that this happens the faster the rate of conversion.

  - Called the snowball effect, gradually the minority view has become the majority view and change has occurred
• Moscovivi et al (1969)


  - Demonstrated minority influence in a study where a group of 6 people was asked to view a set of 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue or green

  - In each group there were 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green on 2/3 of the trials

  - The parts gave the same wrong answer in 8.42% of trials, 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least 1 trial

  - 2nd group of parts was exposed to an inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25%.

  - For a 3rd control group there were no confederates and all parts had to do was identify the colour of each slide. Got this wrong on 0.25% of the trials
• Evaluation- Research Support for Consistency

  - Research evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency

  - Moscovici et al showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on others than an inconsistent one

  - Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential

  - Suggests consistency is a major factor in minority influence
• Evaluation- Research Support for Depth of Thought

  - Support that change to a minority position does involve deeper processing of ideas

  - Marin et al (2003) gave parts a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support.

  - 1 group of parts then heard a minority group agree with the initial view while another group heard this from a majority group

  - Parts were finally exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again

  - Found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with a majority group

  - Suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence process works
• Evaluation- Artificial Tasks


  - Limitation of minority influence research is that the tasks that are involved are artificial

  - Research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life

  - In cases such as jury decision making and political campaigning, the outcomes are much more important

  - Means findings of minority influence studies such as Moscovivi et als are lacking in external validity, limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real- life situations
• Evaluation- Research Support for Internalisation

  - In variation of Moscovivi's study, parts were allowed to write down their answers, so the responses were private

  - Private agreement with the minority was greater in these circumstances

  - Appears that members of the majority were being convinced by the minority's argument and changing their own views, reluctant to admit this in public

  - Thought this was because they didn't want to be associated with a minority position for fear of being considered 'radical' or ' weird
• Evaluation- Limited Real- World Appliactions


  - Research studies usually make a very clear and obvious distinction between the majority and minority

  - Being able to do this in a controlled way is a strength of much minority influence research

  - Limitation is that real-life social influence situations are much more complicated

  - There is more involved in the difference between a minority and a majority than numbers

  - e.g. majorities usually have a lot more power and status that minorities

  - Minorities are very committed to their causes- they have to be because they often face very hostile opposition

  - OR they can be very tight-knit groups whose members know each other very well and frequently turn to each other for support