Minority Influence

• Define 'minority influence'


  A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Leads to internalisation - private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours. Minority influence was first researched by Serge Moscovici in his 'blue-slide, green-slide' study.
• Outline how consistency affects minority influence


  - Minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs both over time and between the individuals that make up the minority.

  - Over time, consistency increases the interest from other people, and draws attention to the minority viewpoint.

  - Synchronic consistency - the minority all say the same thing.

  - Diachronic consistency - the minority have been saying the same thing for some time now

  - A consistent minority makes other people start to rethink their views.
• Outline how commitment affects minority influence

  - Minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrate dedication to their cause/beliefs.

  - For example, making personal sacrifices shows to the minority that they are not acting out of self-interest.

  - This is the augmentation principle.
• Outline how flexibility affects minority influence

  - Nemeth (1986) argued that consistency can be off-putting.

  - Someone who just repeats the same arguments and behavious can be seen as rigid, dogmatic and unbending.

  - To avoid this, members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept valid counterarguments.

  - The minority need to find a balance between flexibility and consistency.
• The process of change due to minority influence

  - Hearing something you agree with doesn't always make you think. But, if you hear something new, you may think about it more deeply, especially if the source of this new information is committed, consistent and flexible. This deeper processing is vital in the process of conversion to a different minority viewpoint.

  - Over time, the numbers of people switch from the majority to the minority. The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. This is the snowball effect; gradually, the minority largens and the majority becomes smaller - the minority have become the majority.
• Moscovici et al. (1969)


  - Moscovici et al. demonstrated minority influence in a study where a group of 6 viewed a set of 36 blue slides of varying intensity and say whether the slides were blue or green.

  - In each group, there were two confederates who consistently said that the slide was green.

  - The true participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of the trials.

  - A second group of participants were exposed to an inconsistent minority - the confederates said green 24x and blue 12x. In this group, agreement with 'green' fell to 1.25%.

  - In a third control group, there were no confederates; participants just had to identify the colour, which they got wrong on 0.25% of the time.
• Evaluating minority influence: Research support for consistency


  - Moscovici et al.'s (1969) study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing others' views than an inconsistent minority.

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

  - This suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for minority influence to succeed.
• Evaluating minority influence: Research support for deeper processing

  - A strength is that there's evidence showing that a change in the majority's position involves deeper processing of the minority's ideas.

  - Martin et al. (2003) presented a message supporting a certain viewpoint and measured participants' agreement.

  - One group of participants heard the minority agree with the initial view while another group heard the majority agree with the initial view. Participants were exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again.

  - People were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than a majority.

  - This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence works.

  
  

  - Counterpoint: Studies like Martin et al. make clear distinctions between majority and minority, and do this in a controlled manner. This is useful for minority influence research but real-world scenarios are often more complex.

  - Minorities are very committed to their causes, otherwise they face hostility. These features are usually absent from minority influence research, therefore, Martin et al.'s findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in the real world.
• Evaluating minority influence: Artificial tasks

  - A limitation is that the tasks involved in minority influence research are often very artificial, including Moscovici's study. 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, the outcomes are vastly more important than in these trivial studies.

  - This means that findings of minority influence studies lack external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about the way minority influence works in real-life social situations.
• Evaluating minority influence: Power of minority influence

  - In Moscovici et al.'s study, the finding for consistent agreement was a very low 8%. This suggests that minority influence is rare and not a useful topic.

  - However, when participants wrote down their answers privately, they were more likely to agree with the minority view.

  - This suggests that the view expressed by people in public was merely the tip of the iceberg.