minority influence Flashcards
Why can’t minority groups influence people by creating social pressure to fit in and avoid rejection?
Minority influences can’t influence people by creating social pressure, because fitting in means doing what most people are doing, and not standing out. But the minority do stand out - they’re different from the majority.
what is meant by minority influence
Minority influence is when a minority changes the attitudes and behaviours of the majority.
what is the process called by which minorities influence a majority
conversion
what are the 3 behaviours/factors that affect minority influence
commitment
flexibility
consistency
how does consistency affect minority influence
MI is more effective when minority hold a consistent pov over time (they all hold the same pov/in agreement with each other)
stability
Consistency which is when everyone in the minority repeatedly holds the same attitude.
how does commitment affect MI
MI more likely to occur if the minority shows dedication to their pov, usually involves some kind of personal sacrifice
Commitment which is where the minority demonstrate how important the cause is to them, willing to expose themselves, speak publicallly
how does flexibility affect MI
MI more likely to occur when minority is willing to make a compromise and negotiate as they cannot be viewed as domgmatic/unreasonable/rigid
be willing to listen and understand other people pov
why does conversion occur (first reason)
there can be a cognitive conflict as being exposed to a different pov (minority’s) could cause you (majority) to have personal conflict of your ideas
minority create conflict which makes people take notice
The minority creates disturbances by doing things that aren’t considered normal.
why does conversion occur? (v)
majority could see that the minority have a valid point and so causes majority to reppraise their own perspective and convert, they have become persuaded
If the majority thinks the minorities attitudes seem legitimate, they are convinced and adopt the minority group’s attitudes and beliefs.
what are the correctly ordered stages of conversion (3)
conflict
understanding
validity
what does understanding mean
the majority try to understand why the minority are behaving the way they are/their position they try to understand their logic
the majority… (process of conversion
Internalised the attitudes of the minority, and became converted.
what was the aim of moscovici’s study
To investigate whether a minority could influence the attitudes of the majority in an unambigous task.
moscovici procedure
Moscovici recruited 192 female participants
Moscovici showed participants slides of differing shades of blue and asked them to judge the colour of the slide in the presence of a group.
In the group, there were four real participants, and two confederate participants. confederates were minority
moscovici independent variable
Moscovici’s independent variable was whether or not the confederates were consistent or not in their judgements.
There were two levels to the independent variable: consistent minority and inconsistent minority.
In the first condition, the confederates always said that the slides were green. This was the consistent minority condition.
In the second condition, the confederates sometimes (2/3 on trial) said the slides were green (1/3) and sometimes said the slides were blue. This was the inconsistent minority condition.
control condition: 6 naive ps who said slides were blue on every trial
research support for flexibility: nemeth and brilmayer
moscovici findings
In the consistent condition, participants agreed with the confederates 8.2% of the time.
In the inconsistent condition participants agreed with the confederates 1.25% of the time.
Nemeth realised that Moscovici’s experiment ignored the factor of …… and so she
flexibility and so she wanted to see if this played a role in the effect of minority influence
What were nemeths 3 conditions
consistent
inconsistent
flexible
procedure for nemeths consistent condition
the confederates always said the slides were green.
procedure for nemeths inconsistent condition
the minority said the slides were either green or blue-green. This judgement was made at random, regardless of the shade of blue.
procedure for nemeths flexible condition
he minority varied their answer between green and blue-green depending on the shade of blue that was presented.
conclusion of nemeth
People conformed more when the minority showed flexibility.
what is meant by social change
Social change is when minorities change the attitudes and behaviour of a society, so that social norms are created
what is meant by social cryptoamnesia
Social cryptoamnesia describes the effect whereby people forget how the new social norms were adopted and who they came from.
what are the 4 stages of social change through minority influence
drawing attention to an issue
cognitive conflict
consistency of position
the augmentation principle
the snowball effect
what is drawing attention to an issue (a stage of social change through minority influence)
minority draw majority’s attention to issue, if povs are different then maj are motivated to reduce conflict
EG suffragettes used political, militant and educational tactics to draw attention to the fact that women were denied the same voting rights as me
what is cognitive conflict (a stage of social change through minority influence)
min create cog con with that maj believe and mins pov, maj think more deeply about the issues being challenged
EG suffragettes exposed status quo (only men allowed to vote) and min pov (votes for women)
what is consistency of position (a stage of social change through minority influence)
min are more influential when they express pov consistently over time and with each other
eg suffragettes consistent with their views over many years
what is the augmentation principle (a stage of social change through minority influence)
if minorities are willing to suffer for their views they are seen as more committed and so taken more seriously
eg suffragettes hunger strike, emmeline pankhurst
what is the snowball effect (a stage of social change through minority influence)
The snowball effect is an effect whereby more and more people convert to the minority at a faster and faster rate
eg universal accepted about voting
