minority influence and social change

Question 1

What is minority influence?
What can the effectiveness of a minority be affected by?

Answer 1

When members of a majority group are converted to the views of a minority
Consistency, commitment, flexibility

Question 2

Explain consistency in minority influence

Answer 2

If members of the minority repeat the same message over time (diachronic consistency) and give the same message (synchronic consistency), members of the majority group are more likely to consider the minority

Question 3

Explain commitment in minority influence

Answer 3

If members of a minority are willing to suffer for their views and still hold them, members of the majority will take them seriously
Augmentation principle- if someone performs an action despite the costs, the underlying motive is considered strong

Question 4

Explain flexibility in minority influence

Answer 4

If minority isn’t flexible, they aren’t persuasive
Need to consider valid counterarguments and show they are reasonable by slightly compromising

Question 5

How do you not contradict flexibility and consistency?

Answer 5

Balance between them is needed

Question 6

What is the snowball effect?

Answer 6

Minorities changing the majority’s opinions as a slow person as each person is converting a few members

Question 7

One strength of minority influence is that there’s real world application of using commitment, flexibility and consistency
PET

Answer 7

E: e.g. suffragettes showed commitment (hunger strikes), consistency (presenting the same message over time for rights) and flexibility (shifting from peaceful protests to more direct and militant actions)
T: generalised applied

Question 8

One strength of minority influence is that consistency has been shown to help minorities influence members of the majority
PETC

Answer 8

E: Moscovici displayed 36 blue slides of different shades to 4 real ppts, and 2 confederates, the confederate minority consistently claimed that the slides were green>ppts agreed on 8% of trials
T: support
C: 68% never conformed to minorities when consistent
C: lab>highly artificial and can’t be generalised

Question 9

What is social change?

Answer 9

When a view held by a minority challenges the majority view and is eventually accepted by the majority
Societies (NOT JUST INDIVIDUALS) adopt new attitudes, beliefs or behaviours

Question 10

Give an example of obedience in social change

Answer 10

Members of the gov are a minority group that can enact dramatic social change by creating laws
Laws created>society obeys to avoid punishment

Question 11

Give 2 example of conformity in social change

Answer 11

Normative social influence- behaviours can become the norm within a minority e.g. recycling: those against this norm risk rejection
Informational social influence- minority can provide info to the majority e.g. effects of climate change

Question 12

One weakness of social change is that it often occurs over extended periods, deals with sensitive topics
PET

Answer 12

E: This means we can’t use highly controlled lab experiments>clear cause and effect can’t be established>researchers depend on natural experiments and case studys
T: not scientific

Question 13

One strength of social change is that research has practical applications
PET

Answer 13

E: e.g. helping gov understanding how to exchange peoples behaviour like persuading people to eat healthily
Understanding social change can help the economy by reducing society’s healthcare costs
T: boosts individual and economy