Minority Influence Flashcards
1
Q
What is Minority Influence?
A
- A form of social influence where persuasive minority exerts pressure to change attitudes beliefs or behaviours of the majority.
2
Q
Moscovici behavioural styles which minorities must possess to influence majorities
A
- Consistency
- Flexibility and Compromise
- Commitment
3
Q
What is consistency?
A
- Recognised as the most important factor for a minority to be influential.
- Consistency might be agreement between people in minority group.
- Consistency over time. makes people re think their own views.
4
Q
What is flexibility and compromise?
A
- if consistent minority are seen as inflexible they will be unlikely to change the views of the majority.
- If they appear flexible and compromising they are likely to be seen as less extreme, more moderate, cooperative and reasonable. Better chance of changing majority views.
5
Q
What is commitment?
A
- If minority shows it is dedicated to the issue then conversion may result rather than compliance.
- Minorities must work harder to get their position across commitment must be shown.
6
Q
What is the Augmentation Principle?
A
- Part of a minority’s commitment to their cause if risks are involved in putting forward and argument then those who express such views are taken more seriously.
- If minority members are willing to take the consequences of views, impact is increased.
- Minority position often risks abuse and media attention. Sometimes imprisonment or death.
7
Q
Evaluation of minority influence - support for consistency
A
- Moscovici et al study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion.
- Wood et al carried out a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential.
- Strength - suggests that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.
8
Q
Evaluation of minority influence - research support for depth of thought
A
- When a minority is successful it is much longer lasting than majority influence.
- When a minority is influencing a majority, they will process the ideas at a deeper level to try and understand what the minority is thinking. The change will be a private change in opinions and the change in opinion is longer lasting and less likely to return to the original opinion.
- Strength - supports the central argument about how minority influence processes work.
9
Q
Evaluation of minority influence - artificial tasks
A
- Research is that the tasks involved are artificial and don’t reflect real life activities.
- In jury decision making and political campaigning the outcomes are vastly more important; sometimes a letter of life and death, does not compare to stating what colour a slide is
- Weakness - research lacks external validity. Studies are limited in what they can tell us about how a minority works in real life social situations.
10
Q
Evaluation of minority influence - limited real world applications
A
- Real life social influence situations are much more complicated.
- A lot more involved in the difference between a minority and a majority than just numbers of people. Majorities usually have a lot more power and status than minorities. Minorities are ver committed to their causes and often have to face hostile opposition.
- Weakness - these factors are difficult to represent in research and the research does not reflect the importance of these real life issues.
11
Q
Moscovici’s Aim
A
- To investigate the role of a consistent minority upon the opinions of a majority in a clear, unambiguous situation.
12
Q
Moscovici’s Procedure
A
- All female participants were give eye tests to ensure they were not colour blind.
- Told it was an investigation into perception.
- Placed in a group consisting of 4 participants and 2 confederates.
- Were shown 36 slides which were clearly different shades of blue and asked to state the colour of each slide out loud.
- Condition 1 - 2 confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides. Totally consistent.
- Condition 2 - 2 confederates answered green 24 times and blue 12 times. Inconsistent.
13
Q
Moscovici’s findings
A
- In condition 1 - consistent minority had an impact on the majority 8.2% of the time.
- In condition 2 - the inconsistent minority had an impact on the majority only 1.25% of the time.
- 32% of the participants judged the slide to be green at least once.
14
Q
Moscovici’s Conclusion
A
- Although the consistent finding of 8.2% seems to be small, it is significantly higher than the inconsistent condition figure of 1.25% and shows that consistency is important in minority influence.
15
Q
Evaluation of Moscovici’s study - ecological validity
A
- Participants in lab studies are rarely real groups. More often they are a collection of students who do not know each other and will most likely never meet again. Involved in an artificial task and may show demand characteristics. They are very different from minority groups in the wider society who seek to change majority opinion.
- E.g. members of women’s rights, gay rights and animal rights organisations are very different from participants in lab experiments. Moscovici showed each participant 36 slides all different shades of blue. Very simple task and the participants may have guess the aim of the study by slide 8.
- Weakness - research studies like Moscovici’s and the finding lack ecological validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real life. Demand characteristics lowers internal validity.
