MINORITY INFLUENCE Flashcards
MINORITY INFULENCE
- form of social influence in which a miniority of people reject the established norms of the majority group members and influences behavious of majority
internalisation
both public and private beliefs are changed
consistency
- initally people feel that the minority is wrong.
- if consistent come together and reassess and consider the issue carefully
commitment
- gain attention from majority as sometimes minority engage in extreme activites to gain attention of majority
augumentation principles
- these pose some risks to minority but shows commitment to cause
what did nemth argue about flexibility
- being consistent and repating same arguments is rigid, should adapt their points and accept counterarguments
snowball effect
peoples view change, it will quickly lead to wide scale change
MOSCOVICI AIM
- to see whether a consistent minority of participants could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception test.
MOSCOVICI PROCEDURE
- group of 6 people view 36 blue green slides, state colour out loud,
- 3 conditions, 1 confederate said line were green (consistent)
- 2 confederate inconsistent about colour of slides
- 3 control group no confederate
MOSCOVICI FINDINGS
- 0.25% control group wrongly identified colour, in inconsistent group minority
- conditions fell to 1.25%, consistent minority condition.
- pp gave same wrong answer 8.42% of trails, 32% gave same answer on at least 1 trail.
evidence shows change in majority to minority involves deeper processing. martin et al (2003)
- For example, Martin et al gave participants a particular view point and measured their agreement.
- They then heard agreement from either a majority or minority group. Participants were then exposed to a conflicting view and their agreement was measured again.
- He found people were less likely to change their opinions if they had listened to the minority group.
- This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, making them rethink their beliefs.
- increases the validity of the theory.
real life situations may be complicated
- clear distinction between the majority and minority, done in controlled ways majorities have more power and higher status than minorities.
- minorities are commited to cause bc they face hostile opposition, limits martin et al’s findings in real life situations.
EXTERNAL VALIDITY OF MOSCOVICI FINDINGS
biased sample 172 female students,
cannot be generalised reduces external validity
what did asch find about conformity and girls
girls are moser conformists (aschs study) so men may have diff results,
One limitation of the research into minority influence is that the studies use artificial stimuli and setting
- For example, conducted in lab settings and the tasks involved in conformity studies are often
artificial, For instance, line judgement tasks and colour slides. - This shows that the tasks lack mundane realism.
- Furthermore, high control means p’s will likely guess the aim of the study and show Demand
characteristic. - Disadvantage as it impacts the validity of the results, and QVOT. However, high control which means we are able to replicate the study, and so able to retest and see if results are still accurate/have changed overtime