Minority influence Flashcards
What is meant by ‘minority influence’?
Minority influence is a form of social influence whereby a minority of people (sometimes just one person) persuade members of the majority to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.
What is majority influence (conformity)?
Majority influence is associated with compliance and normative social influence (desire to be liked).
It is usually quick to occur.
Majority influence is typically seen as resistant to change.
It maintains the status quo.
What is involved in minority influence?
Minority influence is associated with bringing about change in society (social change).
Minority influence requires conversion (internalisation – both public and private acceptance) within individuals - informational social influence.
It is relatively slow to take place as it involves a change in an individual’s belief system.
What are behavioural styles of influential minorities?
Consistency: The minority must be consistent in their opinion – not changing their views or demands.
Commitment: The minority should be willing to put time and effort into their cause, and make sacrifices when necessary.
Flexibility: The minority must not be dogmatic – they must be willing to compromise when appropriate.
What is consistency?
Minority influence will be persuasive if the minority is consistent (unchanging) with its opinions/behaviour.
This will increase the amount of interest from members of the majority, because it gives the impression that they are convinced they are right and are committed to their viewpoint.
Examples of consistency:
Agreement between people in the minority group (synchronic consistency) – they’re all saying the same thing.
Consistency over time (diachronic consistency) – they’ve been saying the same thing for some time now, maybe they’ve got a point as they’re not backing down.
What was the aim of Moscovici et al. (1969)?
Aim: To investigate the effects of a consistent minority on a majority.
(The ppts were first given eye tests to ensure they were not colour-blind)
What was the procedure of Moscovici et al. (1969)?
Participants were told the study was about perception.
There were 128 female participants.
They were shown 36 slides, which were different shades of blue, and asked to state the colour of each slide out loud.
Participants were placed in groups consisting of four participants and two confederates. It was an independent groups design.
Consistent condition: Two confederates answered ‘green’ for all of the 36 slides.
Inconsistent condition: Two confederates answered ‘green’ 24 times and ‘blue’ 12 times.
What were the findings of Moscovici?
The consistent minority had a greater affect on the majority (ppts said the slide was green on 8.2% of the trials) compared to an inconsistent minority (ppts said the slide was green on only 1.25% of the trials).
A third (32%) of all participants judged the slide to be green at least once in the consistent condition.
What were the conclusions of Modcovici?
Minorities can influence a majority, but not all the time and only when they behave in certain ways. This study shows how a consistent behavioural style is important in influencing majority members.
Criticisms of Moscovici et al 1969?
Low Ecological Validity: Identifying the colour of slides is an artificial and meaningless task, far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life. In cases such as jury decision making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important, even a matter of life or death. The findings are therefore limited in what they tell us about minority influence in real-life social situations.
Low Population Validity: Moscovici used female students as participants (he thought they would be more interested in colours…) making this an unrepresentative sample (GYNOCENTRIC). It is therefore difficult to generalise the findings to males.
Ethical Issues: Lack of fully informed consent; deception (participants were told that they were taking part in a colour perception test).
Moscovici et al. (1969): External Validity
Edward Sampson (1991) is particularly critical of laboratory research on minority influence. He makes the following points.
The participants in laboratory experiments are rarely ‘real groups’. More often than not they are a collection of students who do not know each other and will probably never meet again. As such, they are very different from minority groups in the wider society who seek to change majority opinion.
For example, members of women’s rights, gay rights and animal rights organisations, members of pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are very different from participants in laboratory experiments. They operate in different settings with different constraints.
They often face much more determined opposition. They are committed to a cause; they often know each other, provide each other with considerable social support and sometimes devote their lives to changing the views of the majority.
Laboratory experiments are largely unable to represent and simulate the wide differences in power and status that often separate minorities and majorities.
What does commitment involve?
Sometimes minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views and demonstrate their level of commitment.
It is important that these activities are at some risk to the minority because this shows dedication to the cause – they are being seen to make personal sacrifices (not acting out of self-interest).
Majority group members then pay even more attention – ‘S/he must really believe in what s/he’s saying, so perhaps I ought to consider her/his view’.
This is called the augmentation principle.
What does flexibility involve?
A minority will be persuasive if they are able to demonstrate an ability to be moderate, co-operative and reasonable.
Successful minority influence therefore seems to require the minority to compromise and be slightly inconsistent in its position.
They need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter-arguments.
Minorities are typically powerless compared to the majority, so they must negotiate their position with the majority rather than try to enforce it.
What is a negative of flexibility?
If they adopt a rigid position, then this could lead to a perception of the minority as dogmatic and narrow minded, which will not be persuasive is shifting the views of the majority.
