Minority influence

Question 1

Minority influence.

Answer 1

Social influence can occur when a minority changes the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of a majority.
Leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours.

Question 2

Consistency.

Answer 2

Refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur when the minority members share the same belief and retain it over time. This then draws the attention of the majority group to the minority position.

Question 3

Who conducted a study on consistency?

Answer 3

Moscovici (1969).

Question 4

Moscovici (1969): aim.

Answer 4

To see if a consistent minority could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer, in a colour perception task.

Question 5

Moscovici (1969): sample.

Answer 5

172 females - told taking part in colour perception task.

Question 6

Moscovici (1969): method.

Answer 6

Ppts placed in groups of 6 and shown 36 slides, all shades of blue.
Ppts had to state out loud colour of each slide.
2 of 6 ppts - confederates and in 1 condition (consistent) 2 confederates said all slides - green; in 2nd (inconsistent) 24 were green and rest were blue.

Question 7

Moscovici (1969): findings.

Answer 7

In consistent condition, real ppts agreed on 8.2% of trials, whereas in inconsistent condition, the real ppts only agreed on 1.25% of trials.

Question 8

Moscovici (1969): conclusion.

Answer 8

A consistent minority is 6.95% more effective than an inconsistent minority and that consistency is a vital factor in exerting minority influence.

Question 9

Commitment.

Answer 9

Minorities engage in very risky or extreme behaviour to draw attention to views; it is important that behaviours place the minority at risk to show commitment to their cause.
Augmentation principle - majority then in turn pays more attention to actions being taken and is therefore more likely to integrate it into their personal viewpoints, augmenting its importance, due to personal sacrifice made by minority.

Question 10

Flexibility.

Answer 10

Refers to way in which minority influence is more likely to occur when the minority is willing to compromise; means they can’t be viewed as dogmatic and unreasonable.

Question 11

Nemeth (1986): aim.

Answer 11

The idea of flexibility as a key characteristic of successful minorities who exert pressure.

Question 12

Nemeth (1986): method.

Answer 12

Ppts, in groups of 4, had to agree on amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski-lift accident.
1 ppt in each group - confederate.
When the minority argued for a low rate of compensation and refused to change their position (inflexible(.
When the minority argued for a low rate of compensation but compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of compensation (flexible).

Question 13

Nemeth (1986): findings.

Answer 13

In inflexible condition, the minority had little or no effect on the majority.
However, in flexible condition, the majority members were much more likely to compromise and change their view.

Question 14

Nemeth (1986): conclusion.

Answer 14

Highlights the importance of flexibility, and questions the idea of consistency, suggesting that striking a balance between the two is the most successful strategy for a minority to adopt.

Question 15

Explaining the process of change.

Answer 15

The deeper processing is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority viewpoint.
Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority position to the minority position. Have become converted. More this happens, the faster the rate of conversion - snowball effect. Gradually the minority view has become like the majority view and change has occurred.

Question 16

Limitation - non-generalisable research.

Answer 16

Moscovici used a biased sample of 172 172 female participants from America. As a result, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, for example, male participants, and we cannot conclude that male participant would respond to minority influence in the same way.
Furthermore, research often suggests that females are more likely than males to conform and therefore further research is required to determine the effect of minority influence on male participants to improve the low population validity of this experiment.

Question 17

Limitation - low validity.

Answer 17

There are methodological issues with research into minority influence. Judging the colour of a slide is an artificial task and therefore lacks mundane realism, since it is not something that occurs every day. Research conditions are criticised as being too far removed from cases of real‐world minority influence such as political campaigning. The implications of real‐world cases are also grossly disproportionate to those seen in a lab setting as they can, for some people, literally be cases of life or death, and as such Moscovici’s research lacks external validity.

Question 18

Limitation - ethical guidelines.

Answer 18

Moscovici has also been criticised for breaching ethical guidelines during his study. He deceived his participants, as they were told that they were taking part in a colour perception test when in fact it was an experiment on minority influence. This also means that Moscovici did not gainfully informed consent.
Although it is seen as unethical to deceive participants, Moscovici’s experiment required deception in order to achieve valid results, as if the participants were aware of the true aim, they might have displayed demand characteristics and acted differently. Thus, a cost-benefit analysis would deem that the insight gained from such research was worth the short‐term cost to the participants which could be dealt with by means of a debrief following the study.

Question 19

Strength - support for ISI.

Answer 19

Moscovici’s research into minority influence provides support for informational social influence. In one of his variations, participants were asked to write down their answers rather than say the colour of the slide-out loud. This meant that their response was private and not shared with the other group members. Under these circumstances, it was found that agreement with the minority position was in fact higher, suggesting that they had internalised the viewpoint as true and correct. Moscovici suggests that the majority was convinced of the minority’s argument but found it easier to confess this privately, as being associated with a minority position may seem ‘radical’.