minority influence Flashcards
minority influence
One person/small group influences one person/small group/large group
Consistency
Minority stay united and keep same views over time.
Commitment
Augmentation principle – personal sacrifices show minority not acting out of self-interest.
Flexibility
Minority should accept reasonable counter-arguments from majority.
Process of change
Majority thinks deeply about minority view, then snowball effect – minority view becomes majority.
eva list
research support for consistency
artificial task
research support for internalisation
Research support for consistency
One strength is research evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency. The Blue and green slide study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion. This suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority.
Artificial tasks
One limitation of minority influence research is that the task involved is often artificial. Eg blue and green slides. The research is far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life. Eg jury decision-making outcomes are very important, unlike artificial tasks that have no real-world consequences. This means finding of minority influence studies are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence work in real-world situations.
Research support for internalisation
This finding confirms that conversion is private internalisation of the minority’s message. It is possible to convert to a minority view without acknowledging it publicly. This supports Moscovici’s argument that minority influence involves different processes to conformity which involves public acceptance of the majority’s influence.
