Minority influence

Question 1

What is minority influence?

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.

Question 2

What type of conformity is adopted in those who are converted?

Answer 2

Internalisation, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours.

Question 3

How is minority influence different from conformity?

Answer 3

Conformity involves the majority influencing others whilst minority influence involves a conversion through internalisation to a minority that goes against the majority.

Question 4

Who studied the process of minority influence in a ‘blue slide, green slide’ experiment?

Answer 4

Serge Moscovici (1969).

Question 5

What is synchronic consistency?

Answer 5

They’re all saying the same thing.

Question 6

What are the main process in minority influence?

Answer 6

• Consistency,
• Commitment,
• Flexibility,
• Snowball effect.

Question 7

What is diachronic consistency?

Answer 7

They’ve been saying the same thing for some time now.

Question 8

Why is consistency important in minority influence?

Answer 8

It makes other people start to rethink their own views

Question 9

What are the two types of consistency?

Answer 9

Synchronic = Same message,
Diachronic = Same thing over time.

Question 10

What may synchronic consistency make a person of the majority think?

Answer 10

‘Maybe they’ve got a point if they all think this way’.

Question 11

What may diachronic consistency make a person of the majority think?

Answer 11

‘Maybe they’ve got a point if they have kept saying it’.

Question 12

Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation, what is this?

Answer 12

Internalisation is a type of conformity where both the public behaviour and private beliefs are changed by the process.

Question 13

What is the augmentation principle?

Answer 13

Where people engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views.

Question 14

What may commitment make a person of the majority think?

Answer 14

‘Wow, he must really believe in what he’s saying so perhaps I ought to consider his view’.

Question 15

Why might some members of the minority engage in an extreme activity?

Answer 15

To draw attention to the cause and demonstrate their commitment.

Question 16

Which psychologist argued that consistency was not the only important factor in minority influence as it could be interpreted negatively?

Answer 16

Nameth (1986).

Question 17

Explain the principle of flexibility:

Answer 17

The minority group must be able to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter-arguements.

Question 18

Why is deeper processing important in the process of conversion?

Answer 18

Because conversion will most likely occur due to internalisation and therefore the individual must accept the view publicly and privately.

Question 19

What is being described here?

The minority view gathering momentum until it becomes the majority?

Answer 19

The snowball effect.

Question 20

What is the snowball effect?

Answer 20

The gradual conversion of people from the majority view to the minority view which increases faster each time.

Question 21

AO3 - Research support (for consistency).

Answer 21

Moscovici (1969) showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion.
Wood (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found minorities who were most consistent were the most influential, these studies suggest that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

Question 22

AO3 - Research support (for depth of thought).

Answer 22

Martin (2003) gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support. One group heard a minority agree with the view and another group heard the majority agree with this view. The group who listened to the minority were more willing to change their opinion which shows depth of thought is important.

Question 23

AO3 - Artificial tasks.

Answer 23

A limitation of minority influence is that the tasks involved are very artificial (e.g. identifying slide colour), therefore, research is far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life, this means that studies such as Moscovici’s lack external validity.

Question 24

AO3 - Limited real-world application.

Answer 24

Studies usually make a very clear and obvious distinction between the majority and minority. A significant limitation is that real-life social influence situations are much more complex.

Question 25

A03 - Research support (for internalisation).

Answer 25

In a variation of Moscovici’s blue-green slide study, participants were allowed to write their answers down, so their responses were private. It appeared that members of the majority were being convinced by the minority’s argument and changing their own views.

Question 26

When did Moscovici conduct the ‘blue-green slide’ experiment?

Answer 26

1969.

Question 27

What is the main study in relation to Minority Influence?

Answer 27

Moscovici’s ‘blue-green slide’ (1969).

Question 28

How many people were involved in Moscovici’s experiment?

Answer 28

Groups of 6 people, 2 of which were confederates who consistently said the slide was green on two-thirds of the trials.

Question 29

What did participants have to do in Moscovici’s experiment?

Answer 29

They had to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity and state whether the slides were blue or green.

Question 30

How often were confederates wrong in Moscovici’s experiment?

Answer 30

They consistently said the slide was green on two-thirds of the trials.

Question 31

What were the finding from Moscovici’s experiment?

Answer 31

The participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials, 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial.

Question 32

In Moscovici’s second group (inconsistent minority) what did he find?

Answer 32

The agreement fell to 1.25%.

Question 33

What was the agreement of wrong answers for the control group (no confederates) in Moscovici’s experiment?

Answer 33

0.25%.

Question 34

Which is the main principle that was being measured in Moscovici’s study (1969)?

Answer 34

Consistency.