Minority Influence

• The minority influences the majority
• Beliefs, behaviour, values and morals can be influenced
• In a group situation, the minority influences the majority's attitudes and/or behaviour of the majority. This leads to internalisation/conversion, in which private attitudes are changes as well as public behaviours.
• The three things that help make minority influence successful are consistency, commitment and flexibility
• Consistency means to do something repetitively

  • if you are inconsistent, you look like you doubt yourself
  • consistency is effective - draws attention to the minority view (includes consistency between minority group members and over time)
  • it makes people rethink their own views
• Commitment

  • involves sacrifices
  • making personal sacrifices shows you're not acting out of self interest, inconvenience to yourself
  • showing commitment draws attention
• Flexibility

  • involves comprimisation
  • being willing to compromise
  • not too rigid = dogmatic
  • too inconsistent = too flexible
• Why is flexibility in a minority so important?

  Makes it seem like they are working with the majority and not against them
• The process of change

  • all three make people think about the topic, it shows the speakers are consistent and passionate about the topic, and this leads to conversion/internalisation
  • this then snowballs and soon the minority view becomes the majority view