Minority influence Flashcards
What is minority influence?
A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.
What type of conformity is adopted in those who are converted?
Internalisation, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours.
How is minority influence different from conformity?
Conformity involves the majority influencing others whilst minority influence involves a conversion through internalisation to a minority that goes against the majority.
Who studied the process of minority influence in a ‘blue slide, green slide’ experiment?
Serge Moscovici (1969).
What is synchronic consistency?
They’re all saying the same thing.
What are the main process in minority influence?
- Consistency,
- Commitment,
- Flexibility,
- Snowball effect.
What is diachronic consistency?
They’ve been saying the same thing for some time now.
Why is consistency important in minority influence?
It makes other people start to rethink their own views
What are the two types of consistency?
Synchronic = Same message, Diachronic = Same thing over time.
What may synchronic consistency make a person of the majority think?
‘Maybe they’ve got a point if they all think this way’.
What may diachronic consistency make a person of the majority think?
‘Maybe they’ve got a point if they have kept saying it’.
Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation, what is this?
Internalisation is a type of conformity where both the public behaviour and private beliefs are changed by the process.
What is the augmentation principle?
Where people engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views.
What may commitment make a person of the majority think?
‘Wow, he must really believe in what he’s saying so perhaps I ought to consider his view’.
Why might some members of the minority engage in an extreme activity?
To draw attention to the cause and demonstrate their commitment.
Which psychologist argued that consistency was not the only important factor in minority influence as it could be interpreted negatively?
Nameth (1986).
Explain the principle of flexibility:
The minority group must be able to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter-arguements.
Why is deeper processing important in the process of conversion?
Because conversion will most likely occur due to internalisation and therefore the individual must accept the view publicly and privately.
What is being described here?
The minority view gathering momentum until it becomes the majority?
The snowball effect.
What is the snowball effect?
The gradual conversion of people from the majority view to the minority view which increases faster each time.
AO3 - Research support (for consistency).
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.
AO3 - Research support (for depth of thought).
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.
AO3 - Artificial tasks.
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.
AO3 - Limited real-world application.
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.
