Minority Influence

Question 1

What is Minority influence?

Answer 1

Minority influence refers to how one person or small group influences the beliefs and behaviours of other people.

Question 2

What does Minority influence lead to?
- Type of conformity

Answer 2

It leads to internalisation as the individual changes their behaviour/opinions both publicly and privately.

Question 3

What are the 3 processes of Minority influence?

Answer 3

Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility

Question 4

What is consistency?

Answer 4

Consistency means the minority is always doing the same thing.

Consistency makes other people rethink their views

• Synchronic Consistency
• Diachronic Consistency

Question 5

What is Diachronic Consistency?

Answer 5

When the minority have been saying the same thing for some time

Question 6

What is Synchronic Consistency?

Answer 6

When the minority say the same thing

Question 7

What is Commitment?

Answer 7

Commitment is showing deep involvement

Activities must create some risk to the minority to demonstrate commitment to the cause

• Augmentation principle

Question 8

What is the Augmentation Principle?

Answer 8

The majority will pay more attention

Question 9

What is Flexibility?

Answer 9

Flexibility is showing willingness to listen to others

The minority should balance consistency and flexibility so they don’t appear rigid.

Nemeth (1968) argued that being consistent and repeating the same arguments without any flexibility is seen as off putting to the majority

The minority should adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter arguments.

Question 10

What is the Snowball effect?

Answer 10

The snowball effect is when over time,more people become converters.

There is a switch from the minority to the majority

The more this happens the faster the rate of conversion

Gradually the minority will become the majority and social change would have occurred

Question 11

What is a strength of Minority Influence?

Answer 11

One strength is research supporting consistency

• Moscovici (1969) conducted a study where 4 participants (2 confederates) viewed 36 blue coloured slides.

-In one condition both confederates consistently said the slides were green, and in the other condition they were inconsistent.

• It found that the consistent minority participants which gave the same wrong answer (8%) had a greater effect on people than an inconsistent one (1%) .

Question 12

What is a limitation of minority influence?

Answer 12

Research into minority influence often involves artificial tasks

• Moscovicis tasks were having to identify coloured slides, which is far different than how minorities try and change majority opinion in the real world
• In jury decision making and political campaigning, outcomes are Vastly more important, maybe a matter of life or death
• Findings of studies lack external validity and are limited in what they tell us about how minority influence works in real world situations