Lesson 12- Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility

Question 1

Minority influence

Answer 1

• a type of social influence that motivates individuals to reject established majority group norms
• achieved through a process of conversion (majorities become gradually won over to a minority viewpoint)
• conversion involves new belief/behaviour becoming internalised

Question 2

Consistency

Answer 2

• most important behavioural characteristic
• minority influence will be persuasive if they are consistent with their beliefs/behaviour and appear unbiased
• attracts attention from others to assess their viewpoint as there must be a reason for their viewpoint (Nemeth)

Question 3

Who conducted the experiment to see if a consistent minority could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer

Answer 3

Moscovici (1969)

Question 4

Moscovici experiment- aim and method

Answer 4

Aim
- to see if a consistent minority could influence the majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception task

Method
- 172 female pps told they would partake in a colour perception task
- pps placed in groups of 6 and shown 36 slides, which were all varying shades of blue
- 2/6 pps were confederates and said that all 36 slides were green in one condition
- in second condition, they were inconsistent and confederates said 24 were green and 12 were blue

Question 5

Moscovici experiment- findings and conclusion

Answer 5

Consistent condition- 8.2% of real pps agreed
Inconsistent condition- 1.25% of real pps agreed
Conclusion- Moscovicis results show that a consistent minority is more effective than an inconsistent minority and that consistency is an important factor in exerting minority influence

Question 6

Wood et al (1994)

Answer 6

Carried out a meta-analysis of 97 studies of minority influence, and found that minorities who were perceived as being especially consistent in expressing their position were particularly influential.

Question 7

Commitment

Answer 7

• important factor in influence process as it suggests certainty, confidence and courage
• may persuade majority group to take them seriously
• the augmentation principle explains how minorities can change the majority because if the minority is doing something risky that shows commitment, then the majority will pay more interest

Question 8

Research for commitment

Answer 8

Xie et al (2011) discovered a ‘tipping point’ where the number of people holding a minority position is sufficient to change the majority opinion
- Xie found you need about 10% of the minority population to influence the majority

Question 9

Flexibility

Answer 9

Mugny (1982) suggests that flexibility is more effective at changing majority opinion than rigid arguments because minorities are generally powerless
- too flexible or too rigid risks being seen as weak and inconsistent or dogmatic
- Nemeth (1986) argues it is important to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility

Question 10

Research support for flexibility- aim and method

Answer 10

Nemeth (1986)

Aim
- believed that consistency was not the most important factor in minority influence
- wanted to test the idea of flexibility as a key characteristic of minorities
Method
- pps in groups of 4, had to agree to an amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski lift accident
- one confederate in each group and two conditions
- 1st condition was minority argued for low rate of compensation and refused to change their position (inflexible)
- 2nd condition argued for a low rate of compensation but compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of compensation (flexible)

Question 11

Flexibility research findings and conclusion

Answer 11

• Nemeth found that in the inflexible condition, minority had little to no effect on the majority
• in flexible condition, majority members were much more likely to compromise
• Nemeths research highlights the importance of flexibility and questions the idea of consistency- suggests striking a balance between the two

Question 12

Strengths of minority influence

Answer 12

• nemeth argues minorities open the minds of societies so ppl search for info and allows researchers to understand processes of social change

Research evidence to show that change in minority position involves deeper processing of ideas
- Martin et al (2003) gave pps a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support
- one group then heard a minority group agree with the initial view whilst one group heard the majority agree
- pps exposed to a conflicting view were measured again and it was found that pps were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to the minority group rather than the majority

Question 13

Weaknesses of minority influence theory

Answer 13

The lack of realism to many of the tasks that were given to pps such as Moscovicis study
- judging colours of slides cannot be seen as very real to life so lacks ecological validity
- this means we should be cautious when analysing research findings

May not apply to real life situations which can be much more complicated
- nemeth (2010) claimed that it is still difficult to convince people of the value of the dissent since people may accept the minority opinion on the surface but may become irritated by this view fearing lack of harmony and as a result we attempt to belittle the dissenting view to contain it