Minority influence Flashcards
1
Q
What is minority influence?
A
- A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.
- Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation and both public and private beliefs are changed
- This was investigated in Moscovici’s slide study
2
Q
What was Moscovici’s study?
A
- Moscovici asked a group of 6 people to view a set of 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue or green
- In each group there were two confederates who consistently said the slides were green
- The true participants gave the wrong answer (green) on 8.42% of the trials
- A second group were exposed to an inconsistent minority (the confederates said green 24 times and blue 12 times). In this case, participants gave the answer green on 1.25% of trials.
- A third group had no confederates and they got the colour of the slides wrong on just 0.25% of the trials
3
Q
What is required for minority influence?
A
- Consistency
- Commitment
- Flexibility
4
Q
What is consistency?
A
- Minorities must keep the same beliefs over time and between all individuals in that minority
5
Q
How might consistency attract the majority?
A
- Consistency increases the amount of interest from other people
- synchronic consistency = saying the same thing
diachronic consistency = saying the same thing for an extended period of time - This causes other people to rethink their own views
6
Q
What is commitment?
A
- minorities are more powerful if the minority demonstrates their dedication to their position
7
Q
Why should the minority display commitment?
A
- the minority should demonstrate commitment and engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views
- These activities must be risky as it causes the majority group to pay even more attention. This is called the augmentation principle
8
Q
What is flexibility?
A
- The minority influence should accept the possibility of compromise and be reasonable
9
Q
Why should the minority be flexible?
A
- Nemeth argues that consistency can be off - putting if the same behaviours are repeated
- Instead, members of the minority need to be able to adapt their point of view and accept counterarguments
10
Q
How can we explain the process of change?
A
- overtime there is deeper processing and an increase in numbers of those switching from the majority to the minority
- the faster this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. This is called the snowball effect and gradually the minority view becomes the majority view
11
Q
What is a strength of minority influence? (R)
A
- There is research support demonstrating the importance of consistency
- Moscovici’s study (8.42% gave the wrong answer) showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing views than an inconsistent opinion
- Wendy Wood carried out a meta analysis and found that consistent minorities were the most influential
- This demonstrates the importance of consistency
12
Q
What is a strength of minority influence? (D)
A
- There is evidence for deeper processing. Martin et al presented a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants aggreement.
- One group of participants heard the minority group agree with the initial view while another heard the majority group agree
- Participants were then exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again
- People were less willing to change their views if they heard the minority which shows the minorities message caused greater deeper processing
Counterpoint = this is not reflective of real world social influence situations. For example, majorities often have more influence
13
Q
What is a limitation of minority influence?
A
- Artifical task as Moscovici’s research of coloured slides does not show how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life
- this means the study lacks external validity and is limited in what it can tell us about minority influence in actual social situations
