Minority Influence

Question 1

What do echo chambers do?

Answer 1

Keep us in our place - just say what other people believe

Question 2

Where do the minority views come from if we are inhabiting echo chambers?

Answer 2

Minorities within the group

More influential but less radical than those outside the group ?

Question 3

Why do Asch’s studies underestimate the power of the majority?

Answer 3

There was no explicit communication between participants, and no power structure. There was no power but people still confined

Question 4

What did a variant of Asch’s study show?

Answer 4

Variant with 16 naive ppts and 1 confederate - the members of the naive majority reacted with amusement and laugher throughout the group

Question 5

What did Schacter find?

Answer 5

3 deviates: deviate, slider and mode. Interested in how influential they would be - the communication of the group directly towards the deviate and the slider tie they changed their view. But the deviant was seen as a undesirable group member - shows there are social costs to being a deviate: they were influential though because views did change

Question 6

What are the types of deviates in group discussions?

Answer 6

Deviate - once a view emerged, argue against it
Slider - start by disagreeing, then change mind, argue against it
Mode - agree all along

Question 7

What is a way of minorities being influential?

Answer 7

Gain access to power or authority but many minorities lack power - lots of the research has come from powerless minorities exerting influence

Question 8

What are the difference between the changes majority and minority induce?

Answer 8

Moscovici:
if minority expresses deviate views consistently but flexibly, can bring about conversion: private or indirect attitude and change (internalisation)
whereas, majority produces immediate public compliance

Question 9

What are the possible responses to group pressure?

Answer 9

In private reject, public accept = compliance
in private and public reject = independence
in private and public accept = internalisation - changing views
in private accept but public reject = anti conformity

Question 10

What does Moscovici think you need to do to introduce a change?

Answer 10

Importance of your behavioural style:
consistency - over time and between individuals (most important)
investment - must be costs to exposing a view point, liberty or financial
autonomy - no ulterior motives
rigidity - being consistent while remaining flexible

Question 11

What model did Moscovici develop?

Answer 11

Conflict model to provoke conversion

proposes minority influence is qualitatively different from majority influence

Question 12

What is the conflict model?

Answer 12

Believes majority influence is qualitatively different to minority influence:

majority: induces public conformity through comparison issues, just compare themselves to others, don’t care about the issue
minority: private change through cognitive conflict and validation processes - check our views with others, start to focus on the arguments, if strong argument they convert. start to doubt your own views, changed strong arguments, attend to the issue

Question 13

Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux - first experiment

Answer 13

4 naive and 2 confederates - called blue slides green
colour perception task - varied in intensity
consistent condition: confederates called all slides green
inconsistent condition: confederates called two thirds of the slides green, one third blue
Results: in control group, all called blue, inconsistent group: call them green a small amount of time and consistent: huge proportion of them being called green

Question 14

Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux - second experiment

Answer 14

Colour thresholds - second experiment - standardised test of colour discrimination, given a series of tiles, asked at what point of transition from blue to green, when did they say green not blue. Each ppt tested alone
Results: both experimental groups showed lower threshold for green than controls, latent, indirect effect, threshold that they saw blue tiles as green had shifted
minority - not just public behaviour but also private, cognitive changes

Question 15

Moscovici and Lage 1976

Answer 15

Compared minority and majority influence:
consistent minority (2 confederates)
inconsistent minority (2 confederates)
a single consistent confederate 
unanimous majority and non unanimous majority 
Results: 
minority influence: 
consistent - 10% green
inconsistent - less than 1%
single consistent 1% green
majority influence:
consistent: 10%
unanimous majority: 40%
non-unanimous majority: 12%
but only the consistent minority condition shifted participants colour thresholds - only consistent minority

Question 16

What are latent effects?

Answer 16

Effects on things which aren’t the focus of persuasion, delayed over time

Question 17

What is conversion theory 1980?

Answer 17

Means that attention to arguments = private acceptance

this effects are measurable later and indirect effects

Question 18

After-image effects - Moscovici and Personnaz

Answer 18

After-image exposed, asked to say what colour it was even though it was the same colour
The minority - saw an after image of green rather than blue
Controversial and hard to replicate

Question 19

Example of indirect effect

Answer 19

If minority have a debate about a topic, can get shifts on a topic that is unrelated to that topic - no change in that topic but change in something similar

Question 20

Wood et al 1994

Answer 20

Meta-analysis of over 100 studies
Minorities are less persuasive than majorities on direct measures - the measures which look at attitudes there and then
But not indirect measures - then minorities are more persuasive, thinking of views
Persuasive compared to control conditions - minorities are active agents for change

Question 21

What is the first process which could occur causing minority to induce attitude change?

Answer 21

Systematic v heuristic
systematic = minorities use this, thinking about the issues
heuristic - using a rule of thumb, not thinking about the issue, don’t think of an argument

but no simple story that minorities only use systematic and majorities only use heuristic

Question 22

What is the source context elaboration model?

Answer 22

Elaboration - thinking about the message
Different situations allow or encourage more or less elaboration
low elaboration - majority, use heuristics
high elaboration - systematic processing - favours neither. if important issue, then will elaborate more
intermediate elaboration - conversion theory - favours minorities, listen to arguments and take them seriously

Question 23

Can minorities promote stronger attitudes?

Answer 23

They appear to promote stronger attitudes - more resistant to counter-persuasion attempts, won’t change, more predictive of behaviour

Question 24

What does Nemeth believe?

Answer 24

Minorities and majorities affects the type rather than the amount of thinking
majority - creates anxiety because they don’t want to say conflicting things, have a focus on trying to solve it
minority - feeling relaxed if only 1 person doesn’t agree, so they are more creative in their thinking, listen more and therefore change their attitudes

Question 25

What is the effect of group membership?

Answer 25

Minorities often belong to an outgroup - we tend to be more persuaded by members of our in-group

Question 26

What is self-categorisation theory?

Answer 26

Turner - more social influence when:
source disagrees with us
source is member of our group
we see the sources position as prototypical i.e.: most typical of the in-group, least of the outgroup