Minority Influence Flashcards
Minority Influence
Form of social influence in which a min. of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs/attitudes. Leads to internalisation in which private attitudes & public behaviours are changed. Opposite to conformity in which maj. is doing the influencing.
Consistency
M.I. is most effective when they are consistent about their beliefs: the whole minority believe the same thing or they have been saying the same beliefs for a long time. This makes the view rethink their view.
Commitment
If M.I. demonstrates dedication to their position: making personal sacrifices. If there are risks in doing it, their motive for acting must be stronger: augmentation principle. Shows commitment.
Flexibility
Consistency could be interpreted negatively: if saying the same thing again & again, it could be seen as rigid & inflexible. Off putting to the view. M.I. need to be prepared to adapt their point of view & accept reasonable counter arguments.
Process of Change
The 3 factors make people think about the topic. Increasing no.s of people switch from maj. to min.: become converted. The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion: snowball effect.
Strength (Moscovici)
Research support for consistency. Did an experiment where 6 people had to identify if a slide was blue or green. Each group had 2 confederates who said green 2/3 of the time. 84.2% gave same wrong answer. When no confederates they gave wrong answer on just 0.25%. When inconsistent minority, agreement fell to 1.25%. Shows consistent minority opinion had greater effect on other people than inconsistent minority opinion.
Weakness
Artificial tasks. Moscovici’s exp was artificial. Lacking external validity & are limited in what they can tell us about how M.I. works in real life situations.
Strength
Research support for internalisation. Moscovici’s exp, answers were written in private. M.I. was greater. Didn’t want to admit this out loud to avoid awkwardness.
