minority influence

Question 1

what is minority influence?

Answer 1

a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours

Question 2

how is conformity different from minority influence?

Answer 2

• in conformity, the majority is doing the influencing
• therefore, conformity is sometimes called majority influence

Question 3

what type of conformity is minority influence most likely to lead to?

Answer 3

internalisation (both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed)

Question 4

what are the 3 main processes in minority influence?

Answer 4

1. consistency
2. commitment
3. flexibility

Question 5

consistency in minority influence

Answer 5

• minority must be consistency in their views
• over time, this consistency increases the amount of interest from other people
• a consistent minority makes other people start to rethink their own views

Question 6

describe the 2 types of consistency

Answer 6

• synchronic consistency: consistency amongst themselves
• diachronic consistency: consistency across time

Question 7

commitment in minority influence

Answer 7

• minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause or views
• sometimes minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views

Question 8

the augmentation principle

Answer 8

• extreme activities must present some risk to the minority because this shows greater commitment
• majority group members then pay even more attention
• this is called the augmentation principle

Question 9

flexibility in minority influence

Answer 9

• charlan nemeth (1986) argued that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be off-putting
• someone who is extremely consistent may be seen as rigid, unbending and dogmatic
• this approach on its own is unlikely to gain many converts to the minority position
• instead, members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments
• the key is to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility

Question 10

how do the three factors make people think about the minority’s view or cause?

Answer 10

• hearing something you already agree with doesn’t usually make you stop and think
• if you hear something new, then you might think more deeply about it
• this is especially the case if the source of this other view is consistent, committed and flexible

Question 11

what is the importance of deeper processing?

Answer 11

• it is deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority viewpoint
• over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority position to the minority position
  > they have become ‘converted’

Question 12

what is the snowball effect?

Answer 12

• the more people switch from majority to minority viewpoint, the faster the rate of conversion
• gradually, the minority view has become the majority view and change has occurred
• this is called the snowball effect

Question 13

moscovici et al.’s (1969) ‘blue slide, green slide’ study

Answer 13

• demonstrated minority influence where 6 people were asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue or green
• in each group there were 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green
• true pps gave the same wrong answer in 8.42% of the trials
• a 2nd group of pps were exposed to an inconsistent minority (confederates said ‘green’ 24/36 times)
• agreement with the answer ‘green’ fell to 1.25%
• in a 3rd control group, there were no confederates
• pps said wrong colour in 0.25% of the trials

Question 14

evaluation: research support for consistency

Answer 14

• moscovici et al.’s blue/green slide study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion
• wendy wood et al. (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential
• this suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority typing to influence a majority

Question 15

evaluation: research support for deeper processing (martin et al. 2003)

Answer 15

• robin martin et al. (2003) presenting a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured pps’ agreement
• one group then heard a minority group agree with the initial view, another group heard a majority group agree with it
• pps were exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again
• people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group
• this suggests that the minority message bad been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence works

Question 16

evaluation: low external validity

Answer 16

• research studies such as martin et al.’s make clear distinctions between the majority and the minority
• doing this in a controlled way is a strength of minority influence research
• however, real-world social influence situations are much more complicated
• eg. majorities usually have more power and status than minorities
• minorities have to be committed to their causes because they are often faced with very hostile opposition
• these features are usually absent from minority influence research; minority is simply the smallest group
• therefore, martin et al.’s findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real-world situations

Question 17

evaluation: minority influence research has artificial tasks

Answer 17

• eg. moscovici et al.’s task of identifying the colour of a slide
• research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour or majorities in real life
• in cases such a jury decision-making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important
• this means findings from minority influence studies are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real-world social situations

Question 18

evaluation: power of minority influence

Answer 18

• in moscovici et al.’s study, the figure for agreement with a consistent minority was very low, being only 8% on average
• this suggests that minority influence is quite rare and not a useful concept
• however, when participants wrote down their answers privately, they were more likely to agree with the minority view
• this suggests that the view expressed by people in public does not reflect how they feel in private