Minority Influence

Question 1

Minority-factors

Form of social influence and leads to majority converting own beliefs to match minority.

Answer 1

CONSISTENCY
When people are first exposed to a minority position they may assume the minority is wrong.
-its effective minority keeps the same belief, both over time and between all individuals that form minority.
- draws attention to minority view
- gets majority to rethink their views
- can lead to majority thinking deeply
- leading to cognitive conflict
- overtime internalisation of minority views.

COMMITMENT
Minority influence is powerful if minority demonstrates dedication to their position, by making personal sacrifices, or engaging in extreme activities.
- its affective because it shows the minority is not acting out of self interest which means they are taken seriously.

FLEXIBILITY
This is effective as it shows the majority that by being flexible, they are willing to listen and adapt their point of view.
- this ability to compromise makes the majority more sympathetic to their cause. If the minority is flexible they are more likely to be seen as potential for serious change.

Question 2

Research into minority influence

MOSCOVICI ET AL 1969

Answer 2

AIM
To investigate if a consistent minority causes participants to change views in an unambiguous situation

PROCEDURE
Laboratory experiment, 172 american female. Estimating colour of 36 slides.
- the two conditions consisted of 6 participants, 4 were real participants and 2 confederates(the minority)
- participants asked to describe colour of 36 slides. ALL WERE BLUE BUT VARIED IN BRIGHTNESS DUE TO DIFFERENT FILTERS.
- in consistent condition: 2 confeds called all slides green(36)
- in inconsistent condition: 2 confeds called 24 slides green and 12 blue.
- control group used for comparison
- minority influence was measured by percentage of naïve participants who went along with the confeds when they called blue slides green.

FINDINGS
in consistent condition: participants agreed with minority on 8.42% of trials
- in inconsistent condition: 1.25% participants answer were green
- control group: only 0.25% of participants answers were green
- so consistent condition showed the greatest giving into minority influence

CONCLUSION:
Minority can have small influence over majority, although it is small(8.42%) an influence was demonstrated.

USE AS A03 SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

Question 3

Evaluation of research into minority influence

Answer 3

Validity
One limitation of research into minority influence if that of population validity. Can be considered as biased sample and might have the need to question how far these results can be generalised to wider population. Some research has suggest that females may be more conformist than men, so are affected more. Therefore further research is required to determine the effect of minority on males. Another criticism is - lack of external validity: lacks mundane realism, identifying colour of slide if trivial task.

Ethical issues:
As with much social influence research, it was necessary for moscovici to deceive participants about purpose of experiment in order to investigate hypothesis. Although its seen as unethical to deceive participants, he required this to achieve valid results. If participants were aware of aim, they could show demand characteristics. However participants were told true purpose of experiment which acted as debrief. Although deception was harmless cost benefit analysis needs to be considered to be ethically accepted.

Supporting research for flexibility:
There is research to support the idea that flexibility together with consistency aid minority influence. Nemeth(1986) created groups of three participants and one confed who decided how much compensation to pay a victim of ski lift accident. When a consistent confed argued for a low amount he has no effect on minority. However when he compromised a little and suggested higher amount, the majority changed their opinion to the lower amount. Shows minorities have to also be flexible to be persuasive. Therefore offers support for the idea that the most successful approach would apear to be a balance between consistency and flexibility.

Other factors:
There may be other factors as well as consistency, commitment and flexibility that may affect minority influence. When a majority identifies with minority, then the minority will be more powerful in getting the majority to convert to their viewpoint. For example, if minority consisted solely of males it would be more persuasive in converting the beliefs and behaviours of other males than females. Mass et al found that if minority were homosexual they were less persuasive im changing majority heterosexual opinions than if minority were also heterosexual. This is because the heterosexual majority identified with the heterosexual minority, making them more persuasive and therefore had a greater influence. Suggests that other factors such as identification needs to be consistent when investigating minority influence.