social influence - minority influence

Question 1

Outline what is meant by minority influence

Answer 1

Minority influence is when a small group (or individual) influences the behaviour and beliefs of a larger group of people. This usually has a smaller effect than conformity to a majority, but an effect is possible.

Question 2

Outline the qualities needed for minority influence to be successful

Answer 2

• Consistent (say the same message over and over) - this is more likely to draw the majority’s attention to the issue/problem/belief
• Committed (be prepared to make sacrifices or undertake ‘extreme’ activities) - this shows the majority how important the minority think their view is, and may make the majority process the issue more deeply (the augmentation principle)
• Flexible (being reasonable) - this means the majority are more likely to take the group seriously, and not dismiss them

Question 3

What is meant by the snowball effect?

Answer 3

If these factors (CCF) are used by the minority group, more and more people will have their minds changed, and will persuade more and more of their friends and family to do the same. This is known as the snowball effect, and results in the minority view becoming the majority view.

Question 4

Evaluate consistency as an important factor in minority influence - Moscovici

Answer 4

• Moscovici (1969) conducted a study where participants judged colours of slides. His sample consisted of 172 female participants. They were in groups of six, and two were confederates.
• In one condition, the confederates consistently said the slides were green (in reality, they were various hues of blue) on two-thirds of trials.
• The real participants agreed with the minority about 10% of the time (over 30% of participants agreed at least once).
• When the minority inconsistently gave the wrong answer, the participants agreed with them only 1.25% of the time. This supports that consistency is an important factor in minority influence.

Question 5

Evaluate research into minority influence - unrealistic

Answer 5

Much of the research in this area involves unrealistic tasks in artificial scenarios (such as Moscovici), therefore they do not tell us about real-life minority influence- they lack external validity. As the supporting research is weakened, so is the explanation.

Question 6

Evaluate research into minority influence - bias

Answer 6

Moscovici used a bias sample of 172 female participants from America. As a result, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, for example male participants, and we cannot conclude that male participants would respond to minority influence in the same way. Furthermore, research often suggests that females are more likely to conform and therefore further research is required to determine the effect of minority influence on male participants.