Minority Influence & Social Impact Theory

Question 1

What is social impact?

Answer 1

When an individual changes their behaviour if they’re put under enough pressure.

Question 2

Who developed the Social Impact Theory?

Answer 2

Latane and Wolf (1981).

Question 3

What are the three factors that cause social impact?

Answer 3

• Immediacy.
• Numbers.
• Strength.

Question 4

What is immediacy?

Answer 4

How recent or physically close the source of pressure is.

Question 5

What are numbers?

Answer 5

The size of the group applying pressure.

Question 6

What is strength?

Answer 6

How powerful the individual or group applying pressure is.

Question 7

What does the Social Impact Theory state regarding minority influence?

Answer 7

Minorities can cause social impact through a difference balance of factors to majorities.

Question 8

What experiment supports Latane and Wolf’s findings?

Answer 8

A field experiment in the bird house at a zoo conducted by Sedikides and Jackson (1990).

Question 9

What criticisms were made of Latane and Wolf’s findings?

Answer 9

Mullen (1985) criticised them for focusing on self report instead of observable behaviour.

Question 10

What was the method in Moscovici et al. (1969)?

Answer 10

• 192 women were split into groups of six with two confederates per group.
• There was one control group with no confederates.
• The groups were asked to identify the colour of 36 slides, consisting of different shades of blue.
• The consistent confederates identified all 36 slides as green.
• The inconsistent confederates identified 12 slides as blue and 24 slides as green.

Question 11

What were the results in Moscovici et al. (1969)?

Answer 11

• In the groups with consistent confederates 32% of participants identified slides as green.
• In the groups with inconsistent confederates 1% of participants identified slides as green.
• In the control group 0.25% of participants identified slides as green.

Question 12

What was concluded in Moscovici et al. (1969)?

Answer 12

Minority groups had more influence when they behave consistently.

Question 13

What is a strentgh of Moscovici et al. (1969)?

Answer 13

The control group result proves that the minority groups had influence.

Question 14

What are the weaknesses of Moscovici et al. (1969)?

Answer 14

• The participants being in an artificial situation means there is low ecological validity and thus cannot be generalised well.
• There’s low generalisability as only females participated.

Question 15

What is the method in Nemeth et al. (1974)?

Answer 15

• There were two confederates per group.
• There were three conditions.
• Either the confederates identified every slide as green. Or…
• The confederates identified darker slides as green and brighter slides as green-blue. Or…
• The confederates randomly identified slides as green or green-blue.

Question 16

What were the results of Nemeth et al. (1974)?

Answer 16

• Inconsistent behaviour did not influence participants.
• The confederates who identified every slide as green did not influence participants.
• The confederates who identified darker and brighter slides as green and green-blue had a significant influence on particpants.

Question 17

What was concluded in Nemeth et al. (1974)?

Answer 17

• Strict consistency was not effective.
• Flexible consistency was the most effective.