minority influence and social change Flashcards
What is minority influence?
Minority influence is a type of social influence that makes people reject majority group norms, this happens through conversion which is a process that gradually changes someone’s viewpoint. This leads to a change in both public and private so it can bee seen as a form of internalisation.
What should the minority do to influence the majority?
Moscovvi through research into minority influence found that the minority need to have three key characteristics to convert the majority.
Consistency- They need to be unchanging in opinion and behavior. They should also appear unbiased. This forces the majority to rethink their position.
Commitment- It suggests certainty and confidence in the face of the majority, The augmentation principle explains that minorities can do something risky which shows commitment which will cause more change in the majority.
Flexibility- Mugny (1982) said that flexibility is ,ore effective at changing majority opinion then rigid arguments as they need to negotiate with the more powerful majority. however being too flexible or too rigid isn’t good.
Minority influence evaluation
+) research support such as moscovis study in which people had to say what colour different shade of blue where and a minority group of confederates had to change their opinion. This led to him highlighting consistency, commitment and flexibility as key features of minority influence. Also this research into minority influence has value as minority influence has been shown to make people take better decisions and be more creative. Minority influence has deeper and more enduring effects the majority influence.
- ) Research support such as Mosscovis don’t have much realism so aren’t ecologically valid this the case with many other studies as well.
- ) real life minority influence is more complicated then in the t=studies due to social structures, hierarchies and peoples need for social stability.
What is social change?
Social change is when a society accepts new beliefs and behaviors which become the new norm. It often happens due to minority influence.
An example of this is our changing attitudes towards homosexuality’s.
What are the 5 steps in which minority influence makes social change?
1- drawing attention to the issue
2-consitency of position, minority groups are more powerful if they are consistent when expressing their arguments.
3-deeper processing, the majority start to think more about the status quo and minorities message
4-augmentation principle-of a minority apears willing to suffer for the views they will be seen as more committed and be taken more seriously.
5-snowball effect, as the minorities views spread widely eventually the tipping point will be reached and they will become the majority and wide scale social change will occur. Conformity will occur and everyone will fall into line.
after this social cryptoamnesia will occur, this occurs generations after the social change has occurred on which people wont remember the source of the change and take it for granted ie homosexual people are allowed to marry.
role of social influence in social change , evaluation.
+) evidence for NSI, Nolan investigated whether social influence led to less consumption of energy. It found when people thought that other residents reduced energy they where more likely to do so. This shows NSI leads to social change.
-) Nemeth says minority influence doesn’t have a large and immediate effect. The core issues are often not addressed and change is not seen for some time.
Majority influence may lead to deeper processing not minority influence as we think more when we don’t agree with them questioning the validity of moscovvis study.
social change due to minority influence only happens if the minority is seen in a positive light,
