Section 1 : Social Influence - Minority Influence and Social Change

Question 1

What would happen if everyone went along with the majority

Answer 1

Nothing would change

Question 2

define social change

Answer 2

occurs when societies adipt new attitudes, beliefs or behaviours eg gay rights

Question 3

define social influence

Answer 3

process by which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours eg conformity, obedience and minority influence

Question 4

minority influence

Answer 4

minority influence - how one or a small group influences the beliefs or behaviours of others

internalisation - minority influence leads to internalisation, public and private change of beliefs

consistency - doing same thing, minoritys view gains more interest, makes others rethink their views, synchronic consistency - minority do same thing, diachronic consistency - saying same think for a long time

commitment - deep involvement, gains attention eg creating risk to minority, augmentation principle - gains majoritys attention

flexibility - willingness to listen to others, balance consistency and flexibility, Memeth, being rigid is off putting to majority

Question 5

process of minority influence

Answer 5

think deeply abt minority

snowball effect converted at an increasing rate

social change occurs minority view becomes majority view

Question 6

What gains influence and changes the way the majority thinks

Answer 6

Small minorities and even individuals

Question 7

What type of conformity is involved in minority influence

Answer 7

Internalisation

Question 8

Minority influence is stronger if the the minority is….

Answer 8

Consistent
Flexible
Committed

Question 9

Moscovici

Answer 9

Aim - Investigate effects of a consistent minority on the majority

Method - Experiment similar to Asch
BUT
2 confederates, did not agree with majority view
Participants given eye test, reduce EVs

Procedure - Participants 4, 2 confederates
36 slides, different shades of blue, unambiguous blue

Asked to state colour out loud

1- two confederates answered green for all 36 slides

2- two confederates answered green for 24 slides and blue for 12 slides

Results
1- consistent minority had 8.42%
2-inconsistent minority 1.25%

32% of participants judged last slide to be green

Conclusions
Minorities can influence the majority

Not all the time

Only when they behave in a certain way

ie consistently

Question 10

Moscovici Expanded Conclusions

Answer 10

Consistent minority influence can change opinions: The study showed that when a minority group is consistent with its answers (confederates consistently called the blue slides green), it can significantly influence the majority’s responses. Inconsistency reduces influence: When the minority group was inconsistent (sometimes calling the slides blue and other times green), their influence on the majority decreased, showing that consistency is key for effective minority influence.

Second conclusion: being consistent is not enough for a minority to have an impact and other factors must also be involved because the agreement rate was not 100%, even when they were consistent.

Question 11

What is Moscovici et al (1969)

Answer 11

Research into minority influence that compared inconsistent minorities with consistent minorities

Question 12

What type of experiment was Moscovici et al (1969)

Answer 12

Laboratory experiment

Question 13

What were the characteristics of he participants

Answer 13

192 women

Question 14

What was the task of Moscovici et al (1969)

Answer 14

In groups of 6, participants judged the colour of 36 slides.
All slides were blue but the brightness of blue varied on each slide.

Question 15

Were there confederates

Answer 15

Yes

Question 16

How many confederates were there in each group

Answer 16

2 out of 6

Question 17

What were the confederates job

Answer 17

In one condition, confederates called all 36 slides ‘green’ (consistent)
In another condition, confederates called 24 of the slides ‘green’ and 12 ‘blue’ (inconsistent)

Question 18

Was there a control group

Answer 18

Yes, it contained no confederates

Question 19

What were the results in the control group of Moscovici (1969)

Answer 19

Participants called the slides ‘green’ 0.25% of the time

Question 20

What were the results in the consistent condition

Answer 20

8.4% of the time participants adopted the minority position and called the slides ‘green’
32% of participants called slides ‘green’ at least once

Question 21

What were the results of the inconsistent condition

Answer 21

The participants moved to the minority position of calling the slides green only 1.25% of the time

Question 22

What is the conclusion of Moscovici et al

Answer 22

The confederates were in the minority but their views appear to have been influenced the real participants. The use of the two conditions illustrates that the minority had more influence when they were consistent in calling the slides ‘green”

Question 23

What is the evaluation of Moscovici et al (1969)

Answer 23

-Lacks ecological validity due to it being a lab experiment because task was artificial
-Participants may have felt that judging the colour of was trivial may have acted differently if principles were involved
-Study was carried out on women - results cannot be generalised to men
-We know that participants were actually influenced by the minority rather than being independently unsure of the colour slide - this is the significance of control group

Question 24

What was Nemeth et al (1974)

Answer 24

A repeated Moscovici experiment but instructed participants to answer with all of the colours they saw in the slide, rather than a single colour. For example, they could answer ‘green-blue’ rather than ‘green’

Question 25

What were the three variation Nemeth (1974)

Answer 25

Where confederates:
1) said all of the slides were green
2) said the slides were ‘green’ or ‘green-blue’ at random
3) said the brighter slides were ‘green-blue’ and the duller slides were ‘green’ or vice versa

Question 26

What happened when the confederates said ‘green’ or varied their response (inconsistent)

Answer 26

They had no effect on the participants responses.

Question 27

What happened when where the confederates responses varied with a feature of the slide (brightness)

Answer 27

It had a significant effect on the participants responses

Question 28

What was the conclusion of Nemeth et al (1974)

Answer 28

The confederates had most influence when they were consistent but flexible- Nemeth proposed that rigid consistency wasn’t effective because it seemed unrealistic when more subtle responses were allowed

Question 29

What does Moscovici’s conversion theory suggest

Answer 29

That majority and minority influence are different processes

Question 30

What is the process of majority influence

Answer 30

-People compare behaviour to majority and change behaviour to fit in without considering majority views in detail
-So majority influence involves compliance - it doesn’t always cause people to change their private feelings just their behaviour

Question 31

What is the process of Minority influence

Answer 31

-When a minority is consistent people may examine the minority’s belief in detail because they want to understand why the minority sees things differently
-Can lead people to privately accept the minority view - they convert to the minority position
-social pressure to conform may mean their behaviour doesn’t actually change at least at first

Question 32

Minority Influence
Strength
Research Supporting consistency

Answer 32

Moscovici et al

consistent minority has greater effect than inconsistent

Wood et al - metanalysis of 100 similar studies, found consistent minorities are more influential

cosisstency is a major factor in minority influence

Question 33

Minority Influence
Strength
Research showing role of deeper processing

Answer 33

Martin et al - participants a message supporting a viewpoint, measured attitudes, heard supporting view from minority or majority, and then confliciting view

less willing to change view when listened to minority

minority message was more deeply processed

BUT
in Martin et al, numbers affect majoirty and minority

more factors influence eg power, status, commitment 

studies ar limited about real world minority influence

Question 34

Minority Influence
Weakness
MI research often involves artificial tasks

Answer 34

Eg Moscovici - identifying colour of a slide, dosen’t relate to real world majority influence

eg. jury decisions, outcomes life or death decision

lack external validity, limited to what they tell us abt minority influence in real life situations

Question 35

Minority Influence
Strength
Is powerful

Answer 35

Moscovici

participants agreed with minority when writing privately

those who conformed out loud internalised new views

minority influence is valid, can change peoples views powerfully and permanently (conversion)

Question 36

what does consistency show according to Moscovici and the factors that enable minority influence to occur

Answer 36

consistentcy shows commitement

Question 37

what can minority views initially be seen as

Answer 37

wrong, because they don’t match with what is considered the norms

Question 38

what is effect of consistency on minority influence

Answer 38

consistency shows commitment and the minority isnt willing to compromise, this creates a conflict - when your faced with a consistent majority you consider whether they might be right and if you should change your view

Question 39

what does Moscovici call the validation process

Answer 39

process when you are faced with a consistent majority and you seriously consider whether they may be right and if you should change your view

Question 40

what happens if there’s no reason to dismiss minority views

Answer 40

then you begin to see things as the minority does

Question 41

who created the social impact theory

Answer 41

Latane and Wolf

Question 42

what did latane and wolf argue

Answer 42

they argued that social influence occurs when the combined effect of three factors are significant enough

Question 43

what were the three factors discussed in the social impact theory

Answer 43

Strength
Numbers
Immediacy

Question 44

what does strength refer to

Answer 44

how powerful, knowledgeable and consistent the group appear to be

Question 45

what does numbers refer to

Answer 45

how many people are in the group

Question 46

what does immediacy refer to

Answer 46

how close the source of influence is to you (physically or relationship)

Question 47

how does minority influence happen according to latane and wolf

Answer 47

through the same process as majority influence - its just the balance of factors that create the social influence that’s different

Question 48

how can a minority exert social influence

Answer 48

the numbers may be small
but the minority strength and immediacy

Question 49

how does a majority iexert social infleunce

Answer 49

the numbers are big
so strength and immediacy isnt needed as much as minority influence

Question 50

how do minorities become majorities

Answer 50

through the snowball effect

Question 51

what is the snowball effect

Answer 51

people need to go from privately accepting the minority to publicly accepting it

Question 52

what is social cryptoamnesia

Answer 52

the public opinion changes gradually over time until the minority view is accepted as the norm, but people forget where the view originally came from

Question 53

Minority Influence Process

Answer 53

Drawing Attention - Segregatopm eg schools, Civil Rights Marches, provided social proof of the problem

Consistency - took part in marches long term, displays consistency of event

Deeper processing - activism, people who accepted status quo began thinking deeply abt unjustness

Augmentation principle - freedom riders, mixed bus segregation, were beaten, personal risk augmented (strengthened) the message

Snowball Effect - Cicil rights activists eg Luther King, caught attention of US governmebt, Civil rights act was passed,

Social Cryptomnesia - social change occuted but some have no memory (cryptomnesia) of the events leading to change

Question 54

give examples of minorities changing them public opinion

Answer 54

Martin Luther King Jr.
Gay Rights Movements

Question 55

Lessons from conformity research

Answer 55

Dissenters make social cahnge more likely - asch dissenter broke unanimity, lead to social change

NSI - environmental and heallth campaigns appeal to NSI

Question 56

Lessons from obedience research

Answer 56

Dissobedient models make change more likely - Milgram when confederate refused, rate of obedience reduced

Gradual commitment leads to drift - Zimbardo, once a small instruction is obeyed, more difficult to resist bigger ones, drift into new kind of behaviour

Question 57

Social Influence and Social Change
Strength
Support for NSI in Social Change

Answer 57

Nolan et al - messages on doors, reduce energy usage, decrease in energy usage compared to control group whos message had no referance to other peoples behaviour

conformity can lead to social change via NSI

BUT

exposing people to social norms does not always change behaviour, Foxcroft,reviewed 70 studies os programms using social norms to reduce alcohol intake, only small effect on drinking, no effect on frequency

NSI - does not always lead to social change

Question 58

Social Influence and Social Change
Strength
Minority Influence Explains social change

Answer 58

Nemeth - minority arguments causes people to engage in divergent thinking

leads to better decisions and creative solutions to problems

showms minorities are valuable as they stimulate new ideas and open peoples minds

Question 59

Social Influence and Social Change
Weakness
Deeper processing may apply to majority influence

Answer 59

Mackie says majority influence does not cause individuals to think deeply abt an issue

Majority influence creates deeper processing, believe others think like we do

when majority thinks differently creates pressure

minority influence has been challenged, doubts on validity, explanation for social change