Minority influence

Question 1

Minority influence

Answer 1

A minority of people persuade the others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours - leads to internalisation

Question 2

Consistency

Answer 2

• Minority must stay consistent in their views - it increases the interest from other people
• Must stay consistent overtime and between all individuals
• Draws attention to minority view

Question 3

Commitment

Answer 3

• Must demonstrate commitment to their views
• e.g by engaging in dangerous activities to draw attention to them
• Majority pay more attention (augmentation principle)

Question 4

Flexibility

Answer 4

• Minority need to be prepared to adapt their beliefs and possibly accept a compromise

Question 5

Moscovici’s study

Answer 5

• Blue-green slides
• group of 6 - viewed a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity
• P’s state whether slides were green or blue
• 2 confederates in each group - consistently said slides were green
• P’s gave wrong answer on 8.42% trials
• 2nd group were exposed to inconsistent minority - in this case agreement with answer ‘green’ fell to 1.25%

Question 6

Minority influence - evaluation - strength

Answer 6

• Research support for consistency
• Moscovici’s study showed a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing views of other people compared to an inconsistent opinion
• Other research conducted a meta analysis of 100 similar studies - found consistent minorities are more influential
• Suggests a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority to influence a majority

Question 7

Minority influence - evaluation - limitation

Answer 7

• Artificial tasks
• e.g Moscovici’s study - doesn’t demonstrate how minorities attempt to change behaviour of majorities in real life
• e.g Jury decision making is more important
• Means findings of these studies lack external validity