Minority Influence

Question 1

What does the topic of Minority influence consist of?

Answer 1

• Moscovici’s research
• Consistency, Commitment, Flexibility, Process of change

Question 2

What is Minority Influence?

Answer 2

• One person/small group influences other people (e.g individuals in a bigger group) - leads to internalisation

Question 3

What was Moscovici’s research?

Answer 3

• group of 6 was asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity
• In each group there was 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green
• pps agreed 8.42%

Question 4

What is Consistency in terms of Minority Influence?

Answer 4

• Minority stays united (synchronic) and keeps same views over time (diachronic)

Question 5

What is Commitment in terms of Minority Influence?

Answer 5

• Links to the Augmentation principle - personal sacrifices show minority not acting out of self-interest

Question 6

What is flexibility in terms of Minority Influence?

Answer 6

• Minority should accept reasonable counterarguments from majority

Question 7

What is the process of change in terms of Minority Influence?

Answer 7

• Majority thinks deeply about minority view, then snowball effect - minority view becomes majority

Question 8

What is one limitation of the triviality of Moscovici’s research?

Answer 8

• It is an artificial/trivial task so there is no real reason to not conform. Therefore the findings may be inapplicable to the real world

Question 9

What research supports Moscovici’s research?

Answer 9

• a meta-analysis done by Wendy Wood analysised over 100 similar studies and found that consistent minorities were most influential

Question 10

What questions the power of Minority Influence?

Answer 10

• Moscovici’s research suggested that the agreement for minority was low - only 8% so it may be a rare and therefore relatively useless concept