Minority Influence

Question 1

What is minority influence?

Answer 1

Social influence that motivates individuals to reject established group norms

Question 2

How is minority influence achieved?

Answer 2

“Conversion” - majorities gradually won over to a minority viewpoint

Question 3

What does minority influence lead to?

Answer 3

Internalisation
- leads to disagreeing with the majority
- would only do this if they genuinely believed views/behaviours of the majority were wrong

Question 4

What are the 3 behavioural characteristics of the minority?

Answer 4

Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility

Question 5

How does consistency affect minority influence?

Answer 5

Minority more influential if they are consistent with their opinion/behaviour

Shows confidence and makes other reassess the situation and listen more carefully

Must be unbiased though

Question 6

What are the research supports for consistency on minority influence?

Answer 6

Moscovici (1969) (females, blue as green)

Wood (1994) (meta-analysis)

Question 7

What did Moscovici’s experiment (1969) involve?

Answer 7

172 female participants told they were taking part in colour perception task

Groups of 6 with 2 confederates in each group
Shown 36 slides of varying shades of blue
Participants state colour aloud

Condition 1 - confederates said all slides green
Conditions 2 - confederates only said 2/3 slides were green

Question 8

What were the findings of Moscovici’s experiment (1969)?

Answer 8

Consistent condition - real participants agreed on 8.2% of the trials

Inconsistent condition - real participants agreed on 1.25% of the trials

CONSISTENCY IS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN EXERTING MINORITY INFLUENCE

Question 9

What did Wood et al do and find in 1994?

Answer 9

Carried out meta-analysis of 97 studies on minority influence

Found minorities who were perceived as consistent in expressing their position were particularly influential

Question 10

How can one demonstrate commitment as a minority?

Answer 10

Showing confidence in face of hostile majority - needed as siding with minority has higher cost for individual than siding with majority - suggests confidence is needed

Question 11

What is the augmentation principle?

Answer 11

Explains how minorities can change the majority by doing something risky

Shows commitment to beliefs/behaviour

Makes majority consider the minority viewpoint more

Question 12

How does commitment affect minority influence?

Answer 12

The more committed the minority is, the more that the majority starts to consider the minority viewpoint

Question 13

What is the research support for commitment on majority influence?

Answer 13

Xie et al (2011)
Found you need 10% of committed members of the minority population to influence the majority

Question 14

How does flexibility affect minority influence?

Answer 14

Mugny (1982) - suggests flexibility more effective than rigidity of arguments

Question 15

Why must a minority be flexible?

Answer 15

Minorities generally powerless to majority - must negotiate rather than assert themselves

Question 16

How flexible must the minority be to be influential?

Answer 16

Too flexible = weak and inconsistent
Too rigid = dogmatic

Question 17

What is the research support for the affect of flexibility on social influence?

Answer 17

Nemeth (1986) - groups arguing about compensation

Question 18

What did Nemeth’s experiment (1986) entail?

Answer 18

Participants in groups of 4 with 1 confederate
Had to agree on amount of compensation for victims of ski-lift accident

2 conditions:
- Minority argued lower rate of compensation and were inflexible about it (didn’t move position)
- Minority argued lower rate of compensation but were flexible about it (went slightly higher)

Question 19

What were the results of Nemeth’s study (1986)?

Answer 19

Little to no effect in the inflexible condition
Majority members much more likely to compromise in flexible condition

SHOWS IMPORTANCE OF FLEXIBILITY AND THAT THERE SHOULD BE A BALANCE BETWEEN CONSISTENCY AND FLEXIBILITY

Question 20

What are the strengths of minority influence?

Answer 20

“Real value” of research into minority influence

Lots of research support (Moscovici, Wood, Nemeth)

Research evidence shows change in minority position involves deeper processing of ideas (Martin et al 2003)

Question 21

How is there “real value” of research into minority influence?

Answer 21

Nemeth (2010) argues dissent in form of minority influence opens the mind and makes people:
- search for more information
- consider more options
- makes better decisions
- makes people more creative

Allows researchers to understand means and process for social change - linked to minority influence

Question 22

What did Martin et al (2003) do and find?

Answer 22

Gave participants a message supporting a view and measured their support
- 1 group heard a minority group agree
- 2nd group heard majority group agree

Participants exposed to the other group’s views and their support measured again after

Participants less willing to change opinion if they heard minority group first

SHOWS POWER OF MINORITY INFLUENCE IN TERMS OF VIEWS BEING MORE DEEPLY PROCESSED AND HAD A MORE ENDURING EFFECT

Question 23

What are some weaknesses for minority influence?

Answer 23

Lack of ecological validity on research support

May not apply to real life situations

Question 24

How do the research supports for minority influence lack ecological validity?

Answer 24

Moscovici’s study - don’t usually judge colour of slides

Nemeth’s study - don’t usually argue about the compensation another person should be getting

Question 25

Why might minority influence not apply to real life situations?

Answer 25

Much more complicated in real life
Nemeth claims it’s hard to convince people the value of the dissent

People may accept minority opinion of the surface but may become irritated by the view
- fear of lack of harmony caused people to belittle the dissenting view to contain it