1.4 Minority Influence

Question 1

What is minority influence?

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which a majority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours

Question 2

What does minority influence lead to and why?

Answer 2

• Internalisation
• Both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed by the process

Question 3

What 3 factors influence the effectiveness of minority influence?

Answer 3

• Consistency
• Commitment
• Flexibility

Question 4

What is consistency?

Answer 4

The minority keeps the same beliefs both over time and between all the individuals that form the minority

Question 5

What are the 2 types of consistency?

Answer 5

• Synchronic consistency: all saying the same thing
• Diachronic consistency: saying the same thing for a long period

Question 6

What is commitment?

Answer 6

The minority engages in extreme activities to demonstrate dedication to their views e.g making personal sacrifices

Question 7

What is the augmentation principle?

Answer 7

Engaging in extreme activities present a risk and show a greater commitment. Majority group then pay even more attention

Question 8

What is flexibility?

Answer 8

When a minority is prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments

Question 9

What did Nemeth (1986) argue about minority influence?

Answer 9

Consistency is not the only important factor as it can be off-putting. Extreme consistency may be seen as rigid, dogmatic and unbending

Question 10

What is the snowball effect?

Answer 10

Over time, more people switch from the minority to the majority view. Gradually the minority view becomes the majority and change has occurred

Question 11

How does deeper processing effect minority influence?

Answer 11

Hearing something you already agree with doesn’t make you stop and think but hearing something new will make you think more deeply about it

Question 12

Describe the Moscovici (1969) ‘The blue-green slides’ study

Answer 12

• Group of 6 asked to view a set 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity
• Participants tasked to state whether slides were blue or green
• In each group were 2 confederates who consistently said slides were green
• In another group, confederates said green 24 times and blue 12 times (inconsistent minority)
• In control group, there were no confederates and participants had to identify colour of slides

Question 13

Describe the findings of the Moscovici (1969) ‘The blue-green slides’ study

Answer 13

• The participants gave the same wrong answer (green) on 8.42% of the trials
• In inconsistent minority group, agreement with answer green fell to 1.25%
• In control group, they answered wrong on just 0.25% of trials

Question 14

AO3 for minority influence

Answer 14

1. Research support for consistency: Moscovici’s study showed consistent minority opinion had greater effect on changing views than inconsistent, Woody et al (1994) meta-analysis of 100 studies, found more consistent minorities were more influential

2. Research support for deeper processing: Martin et al (2003) presented a message and measured participants agreement, one group heard a minority agree with the statement and other group heard a majority, participants exposed to conflicting view and attitudes measured again, people less willing to change opinions if listened to minority than majority, minority message had been more deeply processed
Counterargument: made clear distinction between minority and majority, real life situations more complicated, minorities are very committed to their cause, these features absent from research

3. Artifical tasks: research far removed from how minorities attempt to change views of majorities, in come cases e.g jury decision-making the outcomes are majorly important, findings lack external validity, limited information about minority influence in real life

Question 15

What is social influence?

Answer 15

The process by which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours

Question 16

What are 3 examples of social influence?

Answer 16

• Conformity
• Obedience
• Minority influence

Question 17

What is social change?

Answer 17

When societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things

Question 18

What 6 steps show how social influence creates social change?

Answer 18

1. Drawing attention (through social proof)
2. Consistency
3. Deeper processing
4. Augmentation principle
5. Snowball effect
6. Social cryptomnesia

Question 19

What is social cryptomnesia?

Answer 19

People have a memory that change has occurred but don’t remember how it happened

Question 20

How was social change presented in Asch’s study?

Answer 20

Asch added a confederate who gave the correct answer, this broke the power of the majority, such dissent has the potential to lead to social change

Question 21

What did Zimbardo (2007) state about social change?

Answer 21

Obedience can create social change through gradual commitment, once small instruction obeyed it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one

Question 22

AO3 for social influence and social change

Answer 22

1. Research support for normative influences: Nolan et al (2008) researchers hung messages on doors of California houses every week for a month, key message was most residents trying to reduce energy, control groups message made no reference to other peoples behaviour, significant decreases in energy usage in first group compared to second, conformity leads to social change through NSI

2. Minority influence explains change: Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking minorities inspire, when people consider minority arguments they engage in divergent thinking, thinking broad rather than narrow, actively searching for information and weighing options, leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to issues, dissenting minorities valuable as stimulate new ideas

3. Role of deeper processing: Mackie (1987) disagrees that change happens due to deep thinking, states majority influence creates deeper thinking if you don’t share their views, when we find out a majority believes something different to us, we are forced to think long and hard about their reasoning, central argument of minority influence has been challenged