Minority influence

• Minority influence

  A form of social influence, in which the minority persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
• Minority influence leads to...

  Internalisation
• Minority influence researcher

  Moscovici
• Moscovici's procedure

  • Group of 6 asked to identify colour of 36 (blue) slides
  • 2 confederates in each group, who consistently said slides were green
• Moscovici's findings

  • Group 1- consistent minority- participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials
  • Group 2- inconsistent minority- agreement to wrong answer fell to 1.25%
• 3 factors affecting minority influence

  Consistency

  Commitment

  Flexibility
• Synchronic consistency

  Everyone says the same thing
• Diachronic consistency

   Everyone has been saying the same thing for a while now
• Consistency

  People’s tendency to behave in a manner that matches their past decisions/behaviours
• Commitment

  Showing dedication to something (augmentation- extreme activities)
• Augmentation principle

  Thinking, which leads to a deeper change
• Flexibility

  Being prepared to adapt one’s point of view and accept counterarguments
• Nemeth on consistency

  • Consistency can be off-putting
  • May be seen as rigid, unbending and dogmatic
  • Flexibility= important
• Importance of consistency

  • Makes people begin to rethink their views
  • Over time, consistency increases the amount of interest from others
• Importance of commitment

  • Extreme activities draw attention to minority views
• Importance of flexibility

  • Means majority is more likely to compromise
• Strength: I- Research support for consistency. D- Moscovici’s study showed a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing views of others than an inconsistent minority. Wood et al carried out a meta-analysis of 100 similar studies, and found consistent minorities were more influential. E- Suggests a consistent view is a minimum requirement for minority influence
• Strength: I- Research support for deeper processing. D- Martin et al presented a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants' agreement. One group heard majority agree with initial view, other group heard minority agree. Exposed to conflicting view. People less willing to change opinions if they listened to minority group. E- Suggests minority messaged had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect
• Limitation: I- Limited findings. D- Studies make distinctions between minority and majorities. Real-world social influence situations are more complex. Majorities have more power and status. Minorities are committed to causes- face hostile opposition. Features usually absent from research. E- Martin’s findings are very limited- unrealistic
• Limitation: Artificial task. D- Moscovici’s tasks of identifying colour of a slide is far removed from how minorities attempt to change behaviour in real life. In cases (i.e. jury decision-making and political campaigning)- outcomes more important. E- Means findings lack external validity