L11 - minority influence

Question 1

what is minority influence

Answer 1

when persuasive small groups or individuals can change the way the majority behaves and thinks

Question 2

what did moscovici say about minority influence

Answer 2

minority influence leads to conversion
which is when individuals change their private beliefs and views as a result of minority influence

Question 3

what factors do minority groups need to be convincing

Answer 3

• committment: demonstrate dedication by making sacrifices (augmentation principle), taking risks shows minority is not acting selfishly
• consistent: repeatedly gives the same message over time, makes majority reassess their belief and consider the issue more carefully
• flexibility: shows they are willing to listen to other viewpoints, negotiate and compromise so majority will listen to minority and take them more seriously

Question 4

what is the snowball effect

Answer 4

when minority influence has small effect at first
spreads more and people consider issue being raised
majority begins to convert
reaches a tipping point when minority becomes majority

Question 5

what is social crypto-amnesia

Answer 5

majority knows social change has occurred but source of change and message itself becomes dissociated so people do not recall how it happened

Question 6

2 strengths of minority influence

Answer 6

• real value of research, nemeth argues that dissent in minority opens the mind so people consider more options and make better decisions, allowing researches to understand means for social change
• research evidence that minority involves deeper processing: martin etal gave pps a msg supporting a viewpoint and measured support. once grp then heard a minority group agree with their initial view and another heard majority agree. found pps are less willing to change opinions when listening to minority

Question 7

2 weaknesses of minority influence

Answer 7

• samples of studies are culturally biased, all pps from america, findings cannot be generalised to other populations, cannot conclude other pps from other cultures would respond to minority influence in the same way
• based on experiments conducted in labs, questions ecological validity, pps are a collection of student who do not know each other and are unlikely to meet again