Minority Influnence Flashcards
Research support-
Research to support the effectiveness of a minority comes from Moscovici et al (1969). Moscovici et al found in a laboratory experiment with female participants, that when there were two confederates being consistent when estimating the colour of slides, the real participants agreed with the minority on 8.42% of the trials (i.e. they said the slides were green), whereas when the two confederates were inconsistent, only 1.25% of the participant’s answers were green. In a Control group (with no confederates) only 0.25% of the participants’ answers were green. This research therefore suggests that a consistent minority opinion has a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion, demonstrating that consistency is a key element in minority influence.
Supporting research for flexibility-
There is research to support the idea that flexibility together with consistency aid minority influence. Nemeth (1986) created groups of three participants and one confederate who had to decide how much compensation to pay a
victim of a ski lift accident.
When a consistent confederate argued for a low amount and
refused to change his position, he had no effect on the majority. However, when he compromised a little and suggested a slightly higher amount, the majority changed their
opinion to the lower amount. This shows minorities have to also be flexible to be persuasive.
This therefore offers support for the idea that the most successful approach would appear to be a balance between consistency and flexibility.
Validity
A limitation of the research support for minority influence is that it has been criticised for lacking external validity. Both Moscovici and Nemeth’s research lack ecological validity as the research took place in a lab, therefore we need to be careful when we generalise these findings to real life minority influence. In addition, Moscovici’s research lacks population validity as the sample consisted of only female undergraduates. This is a biased sample, and we may question how far the results of minority influence research can be generalised to the wider population. As there are issues with the supporting research for minority influence, caution must be taken with the validity of minority influence as a form of
social influence.
