Minority Influence Flashcards
What is minority influence
Minority influence requires individuals to reject majority beliefs, and be converted to the views of the minority. The minority attempts to change views through informational social influence, so this is likely as a result of internalisation.
Three behaviours that a minority will have to adopt to increase their chance of success are consistency, commitment, and flexibility.
What is consistency
The minority needs to demonstrate that it is confident in its view. If they repeat the same message over time then the argument seems more powerful.
Evaluation that supports consistency
Moscovici (1969) tested the effect of consistency. Groups consisting of 4 participants and 2 confederates were shown 36 blue slides of different shades in two conditions. In the first the consistent minority of two confederates stated that every slide was green. In the second confederates stated that 24 of the 36 slides were green (inconsistent minority). When the minority was consistent 32% of participants gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial, and the wrong answer was given by participants on 8.4% of trials.This compares to only 1.25% of trials where the wrong answer was given by participants when the minority was inconsistent, proving that consistency was vital.
What is commitment
If the minority are willing to suffer for their views and still hold them, then this is likely to cause members of the majority to take them seriously. This is known as the augmentation principle.
Support for commitment
The picture of a vietnamese buddhist monk burning himself on a street in Saigon in 1963 to protest the unfair treatment of the Buddhist community in Vietnam at the time. The picture won the 1963 world press photo of the year, and was so popular that in Europe it was sold as postcards, and copies of the image were distributed by the chinese in the millions. Before this picture the plight of the Buddhists in Vietnam was barely known about worldwide, but because the picture was so powerful in demonstrating that the Buddhists were so upset that they were willing to burn themselves to get their cause heard it had a great effect in turning world opinion against the government in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese government fell later that year.
What is flexibility
If a minority is seen as totally inflexible in their view then minorities will not be persuasive. They need the ability to consider valid counter arguments and slightly compromise.
Support for flexibility
Nemeth (1986) looked at flexibility. He used a group of 3 participants and one confederate in two conditions of a mock jury situation. In the first the confederate (the minority) would show inflexibility, arguing for a low level of compensation for the imaginary victim of a ski lift accident and not changing from that level. In the second the confederate showed flexibility by raising his offer slightly. In this flexible condition the majority were much more likely to lower their compensation level closer to that of the confederates than in the inflexible condition.
we may question the external validity of this experiment, as this was an experimental situation with the participants aware that the ski lift victim was not real, and no money would be paid.
