Minority Influence Flashcards
What is minority influence?
- Minority rejects established norm of majority
- Persuades majority to move to the position of minority
What does it mean by minority influence leads to internalisation?
Public and private behaviour are changed in the process
What are the three process need for minority influence?
- Commitment
- Consistency
- Flexibility
Why does consistency cause social change?
Makes others rethink their own views
What are the two types of consistency?
- Synchronic consistency
- Diachronic consistency
What is synchronic consistency?
People in the minority are all saying the same thing
What is diachronic consistency?
They’ve been saying the same thing over some time
Why does commitment do for minority influence?
Gain attention
How does the minority show commitment?
Activities showing risk
Why does flexibility contribute to minority influence?
Being able show consistency with minority view but also some flexibility to majority view allows minority to NOT appear rigid
What should the minority do to show flexibility?
Adapt point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguments
Who discouraged minority influence to be rigid?
Nemeth (1986)
What occurs over time to the minorities views?
Snow ball effect
What is the key study for research into minority influence?
Moscovici et al (1969)
What was Moscovici et al (1969) procedure?
- Group of 6 people viewed 36 blue-green coloured slides
- State whether blue or green
- Condition 1 = minority said slides all green
- Condition 2 = minority were inconsistent
- Condition 3 = no confederates
What were the findings of Moscovici et al (1969)?
- Condition 1 = same wrong answer on 8.42% of trail / 32% on at least on trial
- Condition 2 = Agreement fell to 1.25%
- Condition 3 = Identified wrong colour 0.25% of the time
What type of participants did Moscovici et al (1969) have?
- Female
- American
Did Wood et al (1994) support or criticise Moscovici et al (1969)?
Support
How did Wood et al (1994) support Moscovici et al (1969)?
Meta-analysis on 100 similar studies and found minorities who were more consistent were more influential
Will Moscovici et al (1969) artificial effect the generalisability of the research?
Yes
Why do the participants of Moscovici et al (1969) effect the generalisability and the ecological validity (external validity) of the findings?
As they were all American (causes imposed ethic if used on other cultures) and all female (males may not be has easily influenced by minority)
Why does Moscovici et al (1969) support the involving of internalisation of minority influence?
Got participants to write answer down so they were private and found agreement with minority were greater
Why are the application of research into minority influence limited?
As real-life situation more complicated as majority as power and status and have very different dynamics compared to the laboratory settings of research
