minority influence

Question 1

what is minority influence?

Answer 1

a type of social influence that motivates people to reject established majority group norms
-achieved through conversion

Question 2

what is conversion?

Answer 2

-majorities became gradually won over by a minority viewpoint
-the new idea is accepted both publicly and privately (internalisation)
-generally occurs thru ISI (so takes time for people to re-examine their beliefs based on the new info)

Question 3

what is social cryptoamnesia?

Answer 3

-‘the snowball effect’
-as more people change their attitude, the pace of conversion picks up and minority gainstatus, power and acceptability

Question 4

what are the 3 factors affecting the effectiveness of minority influence?

Answer 4

-consistency
-commitment
-flexibility

Question 5

how do consistency and commitment relate to minority influence?

Answer 5

-shows confidence in the beliefs and appears unbiased
-seems to be the most important factor as it shows commitment, especially when facing abuse from majority
-moscovici et al 1969

Question 6

how does flexibility relate to minority influence?

Answer 6

-inflexibility isn’t persuasive, being co-operative is more effective
-nemeth 1986 - one confed in a group of ps trying to decide how much to compensate after a ski-lift accident, if conf was rigid in his answer he had no influence, if he compromised a little the group lowered the amount

Question 7

what are the other two factors important in achieving minority influence?

Answer 7

-style of thinking (systematic processing makes influence more likely compared to superficial processing)
-identification (when majority identifies with minority, they’re more persuasive)

Question 8

research on the other 2 factors

Answer 8

-SOT- smith et al 1996 - if minority got majority to consider the issue, they were more influential
-ID- maas et al 1982 - homosexual minority arguing for homosexual rights was less persuasive than heterosexual arguing for homosexual rights

Question 9

what is the social impact theory?

Answer 9

-latane and wolf
-when people change their behaviour if they’re put under enough pressure
-3 factors

Question 10

what are the three factors of the social impact theory?

Answer 10

-immediacy (how recent/close the pressure is)
-numbers (size of the group applying pressure)
-strength (how powerful the pressure is)

Question 11

research on social impact theory

Answer 11

-mullen analysed data from social impact theory research, criticising them for using self-report instead of observable behaviour