Minority Influence

Question 1

What is social change?

Answer 1

Occurs when society as a whole adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm, can be positive or negative

Question 2

Describe minority influence

Answer 2

• Form of social influence of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopts their belief, attitudes or behaviour. e.g. pressure groups = minority group
• Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation (both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed).
• 3 key processes involved in minority influence include: consistently, commitment and flexibility

Question 3

Describe consistency as a process of minority influence

Answer 3

• Over time, consistency in minority’s views increases the amount of interest from other people
• Consistency makes other rethink their own views
• Synchronic consistency - people in the minority are all saying the same thing
• Diachronic consistency - they have been saying the same thing for a long time

Question 4

Describe commitment as a process of minority influence

Answer 4

• Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attentions to their cause
• It’s important that these extreme activities are at some risk to the minority because this demonstrates to commitment to the cause
• This increases the amount of interest further from other majority group (the augmentation principle)

Question 5

Describe flexibility as procuress of minority influence

Answer 5

• Researchers have questioned whether being consistent along is enough to cause minority influence
• Repeating the same argument can be seen as rigid which would make the minority less likely to convert the majority.
• The minority should have flexible negotiating positioning and accept counter arguments from the majoirty
• To be effective, the minority should find a balance between consistency and flexibility

Question 6

Give evaluation for minority influence (support for flexibility)

Answer 6

• Research evidence supports the importance of flexibility for an effective minority influence
• Nemeth and Brilmayer (1987) argued that if the minority is seen as uncompromising and inflexible they are unlikely to change. They constructed a mock jury where there was 3 participants and 1 confederate. They had to decide on the amount of compensation to give a ski lift accident victim. When the confederate wouldn’t change from a low amount, which seemed unreasonable, the majority stuck together at a higher amount. However, when the confederate changed his compensation offer a bit, so did the majority.
• Shows that the minority should balance consistency and flexibility to be effective in influence.

Question 7

Give evaluation for minority influence (deeper processing)

Answer 7

• Research evidence to show that change to a minority position involve deeper processing of ideas
• Martin et al (2003) gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support. One group of participants then heard this from a majority group. Participants were then exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes and were measured again. They found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with majority.
• Suggests that the minority messages had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence
• However, this research makes clear distinction between the majority and minority, while real-world social influence situations are much more complicated than that. e.g. majorities have more power and status than minorities. Minorities are committed to their causes as they face hostile opposition, which is also absent from minority influence research. Therefore Martin et al’s findings are limited in what they tell us about minority influence in real-world situations

Question 8

Give evaluation for minority influence (support for consistency)

Answer 8

• Research support for consistency.
• Moscovici’s et al’s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent
• Wood et al carried out a meta-analysis of 106 studies and found minorities seen as consistent were most influential.
• Suggesting consistency is a major factor in minority influence