Minority influence

Question 1

What are the 3 factors of minority influence?

Answer 1

Consistency:
- can help minority influence through over time more people starting to take notice
- two types:
synchronic = they’re all saying the same thing
diachronic = they’ve been saying the same thing for some time now
- makes other rethink their own views “maybe they have a point if they have kept on saying it”

Commitment:
- sometimes minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views
- extreme activities show risk which shows greater commitment
- majority group members pay even more attention
- This is called the AUGMENTATION principle

Flexibility:
- members of a minority group should adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments
- the key is to strike a balance between commitment and flexibility

Explaining the process of change:
- new views you don’t agree with makes you think
deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority viewpoint
- overtime majority switch to minority, “converted”
- the more it happens the faster the rate of conversion, this is called the SNOWBALL effect (gathering more ‘snow’ over time). Gradually the minority view has become the majority view and change has occurred

Question 2

Minority influence evaluation

Answer 2

Research support for consistency
- one strength is Moscivici’s blue/green slide study
- he showed that a consistent minority had a greater effect on changing peoples views than an inconsistent opinion
- this suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority

Research support for deeper processing:
- a study was completed by Robin Martin et al (2003) which showed that people were more likely to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group than a majority group.
- this suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence works.

Counterpoint:
- there are clear distinctions between majority and the minority
- real world situations are more complicated = for example, majority groups have much more power and status than minorities. however, minorities are very committed to their causes due to facing hostile opposition.
- these features are absent in minority research - the minority is simply just the smallest group
therefore, Martin et al’s findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real - world situations

Artificial tasks:
- both Asch’s line task and Moscovici’s blue/green task
- research is therefore far removed from how minorities. attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life
- in some cases such as political campaigning, the outcomes are much more important = sometimes even a matter of life or death
This means findings of minority influence studies are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real - world social situations

power of minority influence:
- Moscovici’s study
- agreement with a consistent minority was low (8%)
This suggests that minority influence is rare and not a useful concept
- However, when participants wrote down their answers privately, they were more likely to agree with the minority view
This suggests that the view expressed by people in public was just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

Question 3

What are the lessons learnt from minority research?

Answer 3

1. Drawing attention
2. Consistency
3. Deeper processing
4. The augmentation principle
5. The snowball effect
6. Social cryptomnesia