Social change and Minority Influence Flashcards
What is social change?
> When a whole society adopts a new belief
or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’
E.g. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Hitler, Apartheid, Suffragettes
Social change can be both, positive or negative
> Everyday attempts made by others to influence us,
- e.g. education, persuasion, brute force
Social influence can operate on a personal level or a wider level when companies, govts, etc try to influence us
Social influence is not only as a result of majority influence
Minority influence, how does it work? Name the 6 stages:
Creating attention
*Consistency
Augmentation
*The Snowball Effect
Group Membership
*The Disassociation Model
Explain the first stage of minority influence, creating attention
> Dominant minorities draw attention to issues that may have otherwise been ignored
> If a person is exposed to an argument that contradicts the current view of a majority, it causes conflict that the individual is motivated to reduce
> They may achieve this by examining the views of the minority to establish why it disagrees with the majority
> Nemeth (2003) argues that the power of a minority is that they stimulate thought over time this becomes conversion to a new way of thinking
*Explain the second stage of minority influence, Consistency
> Single most importance factor for a minority to be influential
> Initially members of a majority may dismiss point of view, but consistency = acceptance
> Two types of consistency:
1. Intra-individual consistency – where individual members of minority maintain a consistent position over time
2. Inter-individual consistency – where there is an agreement among the different members of the minority
Links to Mosovici’s (1969) study
Who did the research into consistency of minority influence
Mosovici et al (1969)
Explain the research into consistency of minority influence by Mosovici et al 1969
> Wanted to see if a minority could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a perception task – guessing the colour of 36 slides, all of which were blue but of differing brightness
> Two conditions:
1. Consistent – the accomplices called all 36 slides green
- Inconsistent – The two accomplices called the slides green 24 times and blue 12 times
Findings –
consistent condition – 84% of pps called slide green (-32% of pps called it green at least once)
Inconsistent condition – called slides green only 1.3% of trials
Explain the third stage of minority influence, Augmentation
• Principle states that the minority position may be re-evaluated by the majority if it still occurs despite difficult circumstances – their impact is increased because the minority is seen to be willing to make sacrifices to get their point across
*Explain the fourth stage of minority influence, The Snowball effect
- Mass movement of members of a majority towards a minority position
- Influence of minority begins to gather momentum as more and more convert to it
- Decreases pressures to conform to majority by diminishing the allusion of minority unanimity
Explain the fifth stage of minority influence, Group Membership
Hogg and Vaughan (1998) = we are most likely to be influenced by those we perceive to be like us
• E.g. attitudes of straight males towards gay males are more likely to become more liberal if other straight males (in the same group) express such attitudes.
• However, even with an in-group, minority influence works slowly; The Disassociation Model provides reason for this
*Explain the sixth stage of minority influence, The dissociation model
• Perez et al (1995)
- initially, minority viewpoint is ridiculed
- time passes, forgotten where viewpoint originated
- this is the dissociation from source and idea so people can associate the idea for themselves
- As soon as the source is forgotten, people will accept the viewpoint
• This explains the delay in minority viewpoint taking hold of the majority after once being vigorously disapproves
Explain the difference between Majority and minority influence: Different processes
• Majority influence
involves public compliance – more concerned about how you look – exerts normative social influence
• Minority influence Conversion rather than compliance, want people to internalise and truly believe in attitude
Explain the difference between Majority and minority influence: Instant vs. delayed
- Majority influence instant effects – conform rather than risk majority rejection
- Minority influence can take years for the doubt preserved by the minority influence to change the viewpoint of someone holding the majority view
