Minority Influence Flashcards
What is minority influence?
Minority influence is a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
What can the effectiveness of a minority be influenced by?
The effectiveness of a minority can be influenced by consistency, commitment and flexibility
What is minority influence most likely to lead to?
Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation
How does consistency work as a factor in minority influence?
Consistency in the minority’s views increases the amount of interest gained from other people
How does commitment work as a factor in minority influence?
Members of a minority are willing to suffer for their views but still hold them. This leads members of the majority to take the minority and their ideas seriously, as people consider the causes of behaviour
What are the two ways consistency is shown?
(over time + statement repeated)
Synchronic consistency - when people in a minority group repeat
the same idea/theory constantly
Diachronic consistency - when people in a minority group repeat the same thing over a period of time
What is the augmentation principle?
The augmentation principle suggests that if someone performs an actions despites costs and risks, the underlying motive driving tat action is seen to be considerably strong
How does flexibility work as a factor in minority influence?
What is a way to allow flexibility to work in minority influence?
If the minority is dogmatic it can be off - putting to the majority and can make them unlikely to convert to the minority position. Instead when members of the minority need to be adaptable with their point of view and be willing to accept reasonable and valid counter arguments
Flexibility involves a key balance between consistency and flexibility
What is the snowball effect?
The snowball effect explains how minorities changing majority opinions starts off as a slow process - each person converting a few people at a time. However the rate of conversion picks up speed as more and more of the majority convert. The speed of conversion increases as minority view improves in its acceptability
What is a strength of the minority influence? (mock jury)
Flexibility has been shown to help minorities influence members of the majority. Nemeth (1987) asked three real participants and one confederate to act as a mock jury and decide on the level of compensation for the victim of an (imaginary) serious ski lift accident. When the confederate was inflexible, arguing for a low level compensation ($50,000) and not changing position during negotiations, they were less able to convince members of the majority to lower their offers, than when they showed flexibility by increasing their offer to $100,000 during the negotiation
What is a limitation of the minority influence? (ecological validity + population validity + mundane realism)
Lab based studies on factors affecting minority influence, such as Nemeth, are highly artificial making the studies lack ecological validity. The studies may also not be valid when generalised to the real world minority - influence, showing a lack of population validity. In real life, those trying to convince us are often friends and family, and the topics are likely to be important social issues, not meaningless tasks like stating the colour of a slide. The strange tasks within these studies make them also lack mundane realism
What is a strength of minority influence? (real life examples of minority influence)
There are many real life examples of minority groups using commitment, flexibility and consistency to influence members of the majority population. For example, the suffragettes showed commitment by going on hunger strikes and leaders of civil rights movement delivered speeches with a consistent message of equality. The LGBTQ+ rights movement campaigned for civil partnerships, a flexible compromise that ultimately led to the end goal of the legalisation of same sex marriage. The lessons from these previous campaigns can be practically applied to future movements
What is a strength of minority influence? (research supports importance of consistency )
There is research evidence to support the importance of consistency. Moscovici et al’s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion. A meta - analysis of almost 100 similar studies found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential. This suggests tat consistency plays a major role in minority influence
