Minority Influence Flashcards
research support for the importance of consistency in minority influence
E – Moscovici found participants on their own made almost no errors when asked to identify the colour of some blue slides. But they made more errors if placed in a group in which a minority of members (confederates) occasionally gave the wrong answer, and significantly more errors if the minority consistently gave the wrong answer.
E – This finding supports Moscovici’s claim that consistency is important for a minority to be influential as participants were more likely to side with minorities and erroneously identify the colour of the slides in the consistent condition). However, participants did make more errors in the inconsistent minority condition compared to the control condition, showing that even an inconsistent minority can have some influence. However, much like Asch’s research, Moscovici task was highly artificial, weakening its ecological validity, and limiting what it can reveal about minority influence in the real world.
L – In summary, Moscovici’s experiment does suggest that consistency is important for minorities to influence the majority, but the study’s issues with ecological validity undermine this conclusion.
research support for the role of flexibility in minority influence
E – Nemeth had groups of participants decide on an amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski-lift accident. Nemeth found that a single confederate within the group was more effective at arguing for a low amount if they started low but adjusted their figure upwards rather than staying fixed on a low sum.
E – This study supports the idea that minorities can be more persuasive if they adopt a flexible approach, as the when the confederate adjusted their argument in response to the majority position, more participants were influenced. This also shows the limits of consistency (and therefore the related concept of commitment), as being flexible inevitably means a reduction in the levels of consistency. However, Nemeth’s study found that a confederate was persuasive only when shifting late in negotiations, showing flexibility. An early shift was seen as caving in, highlighting the complexity of the factors affecting minority influence. This study’s support for the role of flexibility within minority influence is especially compelling as it has reasonably strong ecological validity. This is because the task Nemeth set his participants appears similar to typical real-world examples of minority influence, in which those in the minority seek to persuade a majority group of their views.
L – Therefore, this study provides evidence for the importance of flexibility in minority influence, and this is especially compelling because of the fairly strong ecological validity
However, a limitation of research into minority influence, like Moscovici’s study, is its lack of ecological validity
E – In real-world settings, minority groups are not just smaller in number but often lack the same power and status as the majority, making their position fundamentally different.
E – This undermines research into minority influence because laboratory experiments struggle to replicate these real-world power dynamics. In studies like Moscovici’s blue-slide experiment, the minority lacks real social consequences for their stance, whereas in reality, minorities often face opposition, discrimination, or stigmatization for challenging the majority.
L – Therefore, many of the findings of lab-based research may not generalise beyond a controlled lab setting, limiting what they can reveal about minority influence in real-world settings.
