minority influence Flashcards
what is minority influence?
a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
how is conformity different from minority influence?
- in conformity, the majority is doing the influencing
- therefore, conformity is sometimes called majority influence
what type of conformity is minority influence most likely to lead to?
internalisation (both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed)
what are the 3 main processes in minority influence?
- consistency
- commitment
- flexibility
consistency in minority influence
- 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
describe the 2 types of consistency
- synchronic consistency: consistency amongst themselves
- diachronic consistency: consistency across time
commitment in minority influence
- minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause or views
- sometimes minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views
describe the augmentation principle
- extreme activities must present some risk to the minority because this shows greater commitment
- majority group members then pay even more attention
flexibility in minority influence
- 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
how do the three factors make people think about the minority’s view or cause?
- 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
what is the importance of deeper processing?
- 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 ie. they have become converted
what is the snowball effect?
- 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
describe the procedure for moscovici et al.’s (1969) ‘blue slide, green slide’ study
- 6 people were asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity
- asked to state whether the slides were blue or green
what did moscovici et al. find with a consistent minority?
- in each group, 2 confederates consistently said the slides were green
- true ps gave the same wrong answer in 8.42% of the trials
what did moscovici et al. find with an inconsistent minority?
- 2 confederates said green 24/36 times
- agreement with the answer ‘green’ fell to 1.25%
what did moscovici et al. find with no confederates?
- in a 3rd control group, there were no confederates
- ps said wrong colour in 0.25% of the trials
evaluation: research support for consistency (moscovici et al. 1969)
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
evaluation: research support for consistency (wood et al. 1994)
- carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies
- found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential
- suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority
evaluation: research support for deeper processing (martin et al. 2003)
- presented 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
- 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
evaluation: low external validity
- 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
evaluation: minority influence research has artificial tasks
- 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
evaluation: limited power of minority influence
- in moscovici et al.’s study, the figure for agreement with a consistent minority was very low, being only 8% on average
- suggests that minority influence is quite rare and not a useful concept
evaluation: private vs. public opinion
- in moscovici et al.’s study, when ps wrote down their answers privately they were more likely to agree with the minority view
- therefore, the view expressed by people in public may not reflect how they feel in private
