Conformity: Minority Infleunce

Question 1

What is minority influence

Answer 1

• a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuaded others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
• leaders to internalisation or complete conversion

Question 2

Who first studied the process of minority influence

Answer 2

• moscovici et al - groups of 6 were asked to view a set of 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue or green
• 2 confeds in each group wh consistently said slides were green on 2/3 of the trials
• 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least 1 trial

Question 3

Outline consistency as an important factor in minority influence

Answer 3

• over time, consistency in the minorities views increases the amount of interest from others
• there are two types of consistency:
• diachronic consistency - where the minority group have all been saying the same thing for a long time
• synchronic consistency - they’re all saying the same thing

Question 4

Outline commitment as an important factor in minority influence

Answer 4

• minorities sometimes engage in extreme activities to promote their cause
• these extreme activities must be at some kind of risk to the minority because this demonstrates commitment
  -majority members then pay attention even more, this is called the augmentation principle

Question 5

Outline flexibility as an important factor in minority influence

Answer 5

• Nemeth argued consistency can be interpreted negatively - the minority members can be seen as rigid and inflexible
• this is off putting to the majority and unlikely to result in any change

Question 6

Outline the ‘process of change’ for minority influence

Answer 6

• with consistency, flexibility and commitment all being applied, the majority think more about their own beliefs
  -over time, more and more people are converted,this is called the snowball effect

Question 7

What are the three evaluation points for minority influence

Answer 7

• research support for consistency
• research support for depth of thought
• artificial tasks used

Question 8

Outline ‘research support for consistency’ as an evaluation point for minority influence

Answer 8

• wood et al carried out a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies to moscovis blue slide study and found consistency had the most influential impact on minority influence

Question 9

Outline ‘research support for depth of thought’ as an evaluation point for minority influence

Answer 9

• evidence suggests changes to a minority position involve a deeper processing of ideas
• martin et al - conducted a study on the effects of minority influence and found 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
• this proves minority message had been deeply processed in his study

Question 10

Outline ‘artificial tasks used ’ as an evaluation point for minority influence

Answer 10

• tasks involved in minority influence studies (such as judging the colour of a slide) are artificial
• these kinds of minority influence tasks cannot reflect to real life ones such as a jury decision making
• so these studies lack external validity