Minority Influence Flashcards
Minority influence
Type of social influence that motivates individuals to reject established majority group norms
Conversion
- conversion through minority influence occurs through isi where a minority provides new info to a majority
- minority influence takes time to achieve as individuals will need to re examine their beliefs and behaviour
What are the factors that can enhance the effectiveness of a minority?
Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility
Leading to the snowball effect
Consistency and commitment
- minority influence will be persuasive if they are consistent as this shows confidence in their beliefs
- consistency shows commitment especially if the minority have to resist social pressures/abuses
- this creates doubts in norms and gets individuals to re examine their own beliefs
- sometimes includes minority placing themselves at risk (augmentation principle)
Who created a study focused on consistency and when?
Moscovici (1969)
Aim MOSCOVICI
To see if a consistent minority could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception task
Method MOSCOVICI
172 female p’s in groups of 6 and shown 36 slides in varying shades of blue. Had to state out loud the colour of each slide.
Procedure MOSCOVICI
- 2/6 p’s were confederates
- in the consistent condition, the confederates said all slides were green
- in the inconsistent condition, confederates said 24 of the slides were green and 12 were blue
Findings/conclusions MOSCOVICI
- consistent condition, p’s agreed on 8.2% of the trials
- inconsistent condition, p’s agreed on 1.25% of the trials
- shows a consistent minority is 6.95% more effective than an inconsistent minority so consistency is important
Limitation - BIASED SAMPLE
P - biased sample of female p’s from America
E - unable to generalise to other populations, male p’s
I&D - gynocetric as focuses on females, beta bias
C - lacks population validity
Limitation - ETHICAL ISSUES
P - breached ethical guidelines
E - deceive p’s as they believed they were taking part in a colour perception test. Didn’t gain fully informed consent.
C - could be argued it was necessary to deceive p’s to achieve valid results
Limitation - LACKS MUNDANE REALISM
P - methodological issues
E - judging the colour of a slide is artificial and therefore lacks mundane realism
C - lacks both external validity and ecological validity
Flexibility
- Nemeth (1986) argues that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be interpreted negatively
- being extremely consistent can be seen as dogmatic/inflexible which is off putting to the majority and unlikely to result in any conversions to the minority
- instead the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable/valid counter arguments
Who created a study based on flexibility and when?
Nemeth (1986)
Aim NEMETH
Investigated the idea of flexibility as a key characteristic of successful minorities who apply pressure
Method NEMETH
- P’s in groups of 4 had to agree on the amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski-life accident
- One of the p’s in each group was a confederate, there were 2 conditions
1. When the minority argued for a low rate of compensation and refused to change their position (inflexible)
2. Compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of compensation (flexible)
Findings/conclusions NEMETH
- inflexible condition: minority had little/no effect on the majority
- flexible condition: majority members much more likely to compromise and change their view
- Nemeths research highlights the importance of flexibility and questions the idea of consistency, suggesting a balance between the 2 is the most successful
process of change
Snowball effect - when increasing numbers of people will switch from the majority to minority position and change has occurred
