Minority influence Flashcards
What is majority influence?
social pressure exerted by the greater part of a group on individual members and smaller factions within the group.
What is the minority influence?
A form of social influence where members of the majority group change their beliefs or behaviours as a result of their exposure to a persuasive minorirty
What happens when people converge to the minority position?
It is a deeper and longer lasting, as people have internalised the minority’s point of view
What must be done in order to bring coversion to the minority influence what behaviourial styles must be adopted?
- Consistency
- Commitment
- Flexibility
What usually happens when people are first exposed to the minority influence?
They are usually assume the minority influence is wrong
What happens the the minority influence adopts a consistent approach?
Others come to reassess the situationa and consider the issue more carefully
What did Wood et al. ( 1994) carry research out on?
97 studies of minority influence
What did Wood et al. ( 1994) find in his studies
Minorities who were perceived as being especially consistent in expressing their position were paricularly influential
Why is commitment important in the influence process?
It suggests certainty, confidence and courage in the face of a hostile majority
What does Mugny (1982) suggest about flexibility?
Flexibility is more effective at changing majority opinion than rigidity of arguments
What must minority do when the negotiating?
They mustn’t enforece
What does Mugny distinguish between rigid and flexible negotiating?
Rigid minority that refuses to comprimise risks being perceived as narrow-mined
Minority too flexible and too prepared to compromise risks being seen as inconsistent
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What was each group comprised of?
Four naive participants and a minority of two confederates
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What were the participants shown?
Blue slides that varied only in intensity
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What were the participants asked to do?
Asked to judge the colour of each slide
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What happened in the ‘consistent’ experimental condition?
Two confederates repeatedly called the blue sliders ‘green’
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What happened in the ‘inconsistent’ experimental condition?
The confederates called the slides ‘green’ on two thirds of the trials
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What happened in the control condition?
Six naive participants and no confederates, participants calles the slides blue throughout
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
Findings of the consistent minority?
The naive participant said green on over 8% of the trials
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What happened in the inconsistent minority?
Very little influence, and did not differ significantly friom the control group
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What happened when the main study was over?
Participants asked individually to sort 16 coloured discs into wither ‘blue’ or ‘green’
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What were the results of the study after the study?
Individuals in the consistent groups- judged more discs as green than those in the inconsistent group
Key study: Moscovici et al. (1969)
What do the results of the second study show?
Initial influence was more at a private than a public level
Research support for flexibility
Nemeth and Brilmayer- simulated jury situation
- Group members discussed the amount of compensation to be paid to someone involved in a ski-lift accident
- When a confederate put his alternate idea and refused to change his position this had no effect
- But a confederate comprised, and showed some shift to majority did exert an influence
- Influence was only evident in those who shifted late in negotiations rather than those who shifted earlier
This sugests that flexibility is only effective at changing majority opinion in certain circumstances
The real ‘value’ of minority influence
Nemeth (2010) argues that dissent, in the form of minority opinion, ‘opens’ the mind
- As a result of exposure to a minority position, people search for information, consider more options, make better decisions, and are more creative
- Dissenters liberate people to say what they believe and they stimulate divergent and creative thought even when they are wrong
This view is supported by the work of Van Dyne and Saavedra (1996), who studied the role of dissent in work groups, finding that groups had improved decision quality when exposed to a minority perspective
Minority influence in name only
depite the evidence for higher quality decision-making, Nemeth (2010) claims it is still difficult to convince people of the value of dissent
- People accept the principle only on the surface
> They appear tolerant, but quickly become irritated by a dissenting view that persists
- They also fear creating a lack of harmony within the group by welcoming dissent, or be made to fear repercussions, including being ridicules by being associated with a ‘deviant pov
As a consequence, this means that the majority view persists and the opportunities for the innovative thinking associated with minority influence are lost