Minority influence

Question 1

What is minority influence?

Answer 1

• It is a form of social influence in which the minority group (sometimes just one person) persuades others and the majority to adopt their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
• It leads to internalisation in which the majority will agree publicly and privately with the minority influence

Question 2

What must minorities display in order to cause social change?

Answer 2

• Consistent
• they have to be saying the same message and displaying the same behaviours all the time which is synchronic consistency and it must be over a consistent period of time which is known as diachronic consistency
• committed
• minorities must show they are committed and are willing to give up something valuable to them in order to cause social change and become the majority, this will draw attention to their message, beliefs and behaviours. This is also known as the augmentation principle.
• flexible
• minorities must be prepared to adapt to the majorities point of view and accept reasonable counter arguments and make an arrangement between them where they can both benefit from the majorities change in behaviour. however if they are to flexible they might be perceived as inconsistent with their message and behaviours therefore they will be less likely to persuade the majority to change their behaviour.

Question 3

Outline the aim and method of Moscovici’s study

Answer 3

Aim: To investigate if the minority could influence a majority to change their answers during a perception task

Method:

• 32 groups of 6 females were asked to view a set of 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and they had to state whether it was blue or green.
• In each group there were 2 confederates that would consistently say the tiles were green on 2/3 trials

Question 4

Outline the findings of Moscovici’s study

Answer 4

Findings:
-Participants gave the same wrong answer that the minorities would give on 8% of the trials, 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial.

• a second group were exposed to an inconsistent minority and participants giving the same wrong answer fell to 1%
• In a the third group there were no confederates, the group got the answer wrong just 0.25% of the time.

Question 5

Outline AO3 points for Minority influence

Answer 5

• mosocovicis research is gender bias
• Moscovicis research lacks ecological validity (as it is not representative of real life situations such as a jury in the judicial system)
• Nemeth
• Wood et al

Question 6

Outline nemeth’s research

Answer 6

P: Nemeth has provided research evidence which supports the role of flexibility in order for the majority to be influenced by the majority

E: Groups of three participants and one confederate had to decide the level of compensation to pay a ski-lift accident victim. When the confederate who was acting as the consistent minority refused to change their position from arguing for a lower amount, this had no effect on the majority.

E: When the confederate was willing to be flexible and compromise to a slightly higher amount this also influenced the majority to lower their demands

L: This supports the need for minorities to be flexible to influence majority groups.

Question 7

Outline Wood et al’s research

Answer 7

Wood et carried out a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies to Moscovici and found when the minority were inconsistent this would make the majority more likely to agree with the minorities and give the same answers as them on a perception test. This highlights how important the role of consistency is for the minorities in order to influence the majority to adopt their behaviours.