Moscovici and Minority Influence*

Question 1

What are the three factors that effect minority influence?

Answer 1

Consistency, Committment and flexibility.

Question 2

Who proposed that a consistent minority is more influential than an inconsistent one?

Answer 2

Wood et al.

Question 3

What does a committed minority do?

Answer 3

A minority adopts an uncompromising and consistent commitment to their position.

Greater commitment encourages members of a majority to take them seriously.

Question 4

What did Mungy suggest regarding minority influence?

Answer 4

A dogmatic minority is less influential than a compromising minority.

A balance of flexibility allows for negotiation and, in turn, some influence.

Question 5

Outline Moscovici’s procedure.

Answer 5

Consistent group, inconsistent group, control group.

Consistent group:

• 4 participants. 2 confederates.
• Confederates always said the slides were green.

Inconsistent group:

• 4 participants. 2 confederates.
• Confederates said blue 1/3 of times, green 2/3 of times.

Question 6

What percentage of trials did the consistent minority influence the pps to say green?

Answer 6

Pps said green on 8% of trials.

Question 7

Was the inconsistent minority influential?

Answer 7

No. They influenced the majority very little (less than 1%).

Question 8

Did the threshold in the second experiment differ depending on the original condition?

Answer 8

Yes. Those in the consistent condition set their threshold closer to green. The opposite for the inconsistent minority.

Question 9

Give an advantage of Moscovici’s study.

Answer 9

+ Good control over extraneous variables as it was a lab experiment. Therefore, the findings are generalisable to people outside of the experiment due to the high internal validity. Cause-and-effect relationship established.

Question 10

Give a limitation of Moscovici’s study?

Answer 10

• Artificial setting therefore possibly not generalisable to others outside of the experiment. Asking participants to identify the colours of slides and discs is not representative of a task you would actively do on a daily basis so the experiment possibly doesn’t investigate minority influence in the best way.
• The second study in which Moscovici asked participants to identify the colours of discs, rather than slides, could have been flawed with demand characteristics as participants may have already seen the initial study. This reduces the validity of the findings.

Question 11

List the 5 stages of conversion.

Not on 2022 series.

Answer 11

1) . Drawing attention to the issue.
2) . Cognitive conflict
3) . Consistency of position
4) . The augmentation principle
5) . The snowball effect

Question 12

Define cognitive conflict.

Answer 12

The minority creates a conflict between the majority group’s beliefs and the minority’s. Thus, the majority members will think more deeply about their opinions.

Question 13

What is the augmentation principle.

Answer 13

The minority are willing to put themselves at risk to prove how serious they are about social change.

They will therefore be seen as more influential.

Question 14

What is the ‘snowball effect’?

Answer 14

The minority message spreads as more people consider the issues promoted.

Question 15

Give an advantage of explanations for minority influence.

Answer 15

Advantages;
- Supporting evidence of the role of NSi in social change - Nolan et al - minority influence was more effective when combined with NSI.

Question 16

Give a disadvantage of explanations for minority influence.

Answer 16

Disadvantages:
- Identification is overlooked - Bashir - people were less likely to adopt beliefs reagrding environmental friendliness in fear of being labelled as ‘tree huggers’.

• Not all minority influences have led to change - Dejong et al - An alcohol consumption campaign failed to change when pps reported no change in alcohol consumption following the campaign.

Question 17

What is social norms intervention?

Answer 17

Correcting misconceptions about social norms to influence change.

Question 18

What did Perkins and Berkowitz suggest?

Answer 18

If people perceive something to be the norm, they tend to alter their behaviour to fit that norm.

Question 19

Define social cryptomnesia.

Answer 19

When the view of the minority becomes the view of the majority and people no longer recall where the view has originated from.