Minority Influence & social change Flashcards
Describe minority influence
Form of social influence in which a minority persuades majority to adopt beliefs and behaviours
What does minority influence lead to?
Internalisation- public and private change
What are the 3 factors that affect minority influence
1) consistency
2) commitment
3) flexibility
What are the two types of consistency and their meaning
Synchronic constancy- consistency among minority members
Diachronic consistency- consistency of message/ attitude over time
Describe commitment
Known as augmentation Principle
Describe Flexibility
Nemeth (1986) argued: Being extremely consistent can be negative and perceived as dogmatic and inflexible. - Instead minority needs to be able To adapt
Describe ‘snowball effect’
Over time increasing numbers will switch to minority’s view
Describe the blue/green slide study
Moscovici et al (1969) - 36 blue (varying in intensity) slides - Had to state whether blue or green - 2 Confederates who said slides were green on 2/3 of trials
What were the findings of blue-green slide study
Inconsistent minority: 1.25% agreement
-
No confederates (control): 0.25% wrong answers
Research support for effect of consistency?
Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta analysis of 100 similar studies and found consistent minority’s more influential
Why might research support have low external validity
Trivial/ artificial tasks that are far removed from real life situations such as jury service
Define social change
Occurs when while society’s adopt a new attitude, rather than individuals
What are the 6 steps of social change
1) drawing attention
2) consistency
3) deeper processing
4) augmentation principle
5) snowball effect
6) social cryptomnesia
Describe drawing attention
Draw attention to situation by providing social proof issue for social
Describe consistency (social change)
Consistency shown for cause
Describe deeper processing
Attention to issue means people who had accepted the status quo began to think about it more
Describe augmentation principle
Showing risk and commitment to cause
Describe snowball effect
As majority begins to shift more and more also do so
Describe social cryptomnesia
People have a memory that change occurred but forget how it happened
Research support for NSI on social change
Investigated impact of NSI on reduction of energy consumption.
-
Hung message on front door either saying everyone else is trying to save energy or a control simply asking them to save energy
-
Found significant reduction of energy from first group
Conformity on social change
- When one dissenter it breaks unanimity and acts as model
2. Also NSI, people want to appear normal, when minority is bigger people people join
NSI as a barrier for social change
- People did not want to be associated with ‘tree huggers’ in study
- Need to avoid behaving in seetotypical ways to avoid putting off majority
