Minority Influence

Question 1

What is minority influence ?

Answer 1

Minority influence is a form of social influence where one person or small group influences/persuades others to adopt their beliefs

Question 2

What can minority influence lead to ?

Answer 2

Internalisation

Question 3

Commitement :

Answer 3

-When minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their view.
-Majority groups pay more attention and may adopt beliefs. This is called augmentation principle.

Question 4

Consistency :

Answer 4

• Keeping the same belief over a period of time.
• Increases the amount of interest from other people.
  Synchronic consistency: They all say the same thing over time.
  Diachronic consistency: Saying the same thing for some time.
  This makes people rethink their own views

Question 5

What did nemeth argue ?

Answer 5

Consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be interpreted negatively.

Question 6

How can being being consistent be seen as ?

Answer 6

Repeating the same arguments and behaviours again and again can be seen as rigid,unbending,dogmatic and inflexible.

Question 7

What does flexibility show ?

Answer 7

If members of the minority influence are prepared to adapt their POV and accept reasonable and valid counterbalances. This shows a balance between consistency and flexibility.

Question 8

What is flexibility ?

Answer 8

When the minority influence is more effective by accepting the possibility of compromise

Question 9

Process of change ; snowball effect

Answer 9

As increasing number of people switch from majority position to minority position, they become converted. The more this happens the faster the rate of conversion. Chance OCCURS

Question 10

Research ; Moscovici blue - green slides

Answer 10

Moscovici et al . demonstrated minority influence in a study where
-a group of six people was asked to
- view a set of 36 blue- coloured slides that varied in intensity.
-They had to state wheter the slides were blue or green.

Question 11

Procedure of Moscovici research

Answer 11

In each group of 6 there were 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green on 2/3 of the trial.
- PPTS gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of the trials, 32 % gave the same answer as the minority on atleast one trial.

Question 12

Findings -

Answer 12

PPTS gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of the trials, 32 % gave the same answer as the minority on atleast one trial.

Question 13

Second group of blue-green slide experiment :

Answer 13

Ppt was exposed to an inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25%

Question 14

Control group for blue-green slides :

Answer 14

No confederates and all ppts were able to identify the colour of each slide.
They got this wrong on 0.25% of the trials.