Minority influence Flashcards
What is minority influence(MI)?
-A form of social influence in which a minority persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours
-leads to internalisation
What is commitment?
-dedication to their position by making personal sacrifices or extreme activities to draw attention which shows they are not acting at self interest which may make majority pay attention
What is consistency?
-keeps the same beliefs
- consistency makes people rethink their own views
What are the two types of consistency and define them?
-Synchronic consistency: ALL of MI are saying the same thing
-Diachronic consistency: theyve been saying the same thing for SOMETIME NOW
What is flexibility?
-being extremely consistent and repeating same arguments and behaviours can be seen as rigid and unbending- Nemeth (1986): relentless consistency can be counter-productive
-Need to be prepared to adapt POV and accept reasonable counter arguments - open to comprimise
What is deeper processing in MI?
-Deeper thinking about something new and different which is more believable because it is consistent, passionate which will start a process of conversion to the minority viewpoint leading to a snowball effect after the minority grows
What are the strengths of MI?
Research support for consistency: Moscovici et al. (1969) blue green slide study where there were slides that ranged from blue and green and in a condition of consistent MI where the confederates said green the true participants gave incorrect answers 8.42% of the time compared to 1.25% for Inconsistent MI. Wendy wood et al. (1994) did meta analysis for 100 simialr studies and found consistent minorities the most influential
Research support for deeper processing: Robin et al. (2003)- group 1 = heard MI agree with initial view and Group 2 = heard majority agree. Then heard a conflicting viewpoint but those who heard minority were less likely to change opinion. This shows how hearing the minority had led to the participants understanding and comprehending the message
However, in real-world situations, the majority would have alot more power and the minority would face hostility which makes it harder to join the minority. But in research studies, the minority is just the smaller group so does not always accurately display the difficulties of joining the minority.
What are the weaknesses of MI
-Artificial tasks: moscovici study used artificial tasks which is far removed from how minorities attempt to change behaviour in real life- lacks external validity and limited on how much it can tell us on minority influence in real life situations.
