Social Influence: Minority influence Flashcards
Define minority influence
a form of social influence where members of a majority group change their beliefs of behaviours as a result of their exposure to a persuasive minority.
What are the 3 components of minority influence for social change?
Commitment
Consistency
Flexibility
What is commitment in terms of minority influence?
the degree to which members of a minority are dedicated to a particular cause or activity. The greater the perceived commitment, the greater the influence.
What is consistency in terms of minority influence?
being consistent and unchanging in a view is more likely to influence the majority than if a minority is inconsistent and change their mind.
What is flexibility in terms of minority influence?
the degree to which the minority is willing to compromise when majority. Consistent minorities who are inflexible, rigid and uncompromising in their beliefs and behaviour won’t be persuasive. The minority can’t be too flexible as they maybe seen as inconsistent.
What is the key study for minority influence?
Moscivici et al. (1969)
What was the procedure of Moscivici et al.’s study?
Each group consisted of 4 naïve ppts and 2 confederates (minority).
Ppts were asked to view a series of blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state the whether the slides were blue or green.
In the consistent condition the 2 confederates called the blues slides green in every trial.
In the consistent condition, the confederates called the slides green on 2/3 of the trials and blue on the remaining 1/3 of trials.
In the control condition there were no confederates.
What were the findings of Moscivici et al.’s study?
The consistent minority influenced the real ppt to say ‘Green’ in 8% of the trials, the inconsistent minority (<2%) exerted very little influence and didn’t differ significantly from the control group (0%).
What are the 4 AO3 points for Minority influence?
+RLA
-Moscivici’s study lacks mundane realism
Tipping point in minority influence
-Culture bias
(+AO3) What is the RLA for minority influence?
Explains how minority groups have helped to bring around social change for example, how issues with women’s rights and other discrimination are resolved.
However, the majority normally have a position of power so more than commitment consistency and flexibility may be needed.
(-AO3) How does Moscivici’s study lack mundane realism?
Unrealistic tasks were used and were more simple than real minority influence situations. Other factories in real environments may be just as important therefore the study also lack ecological validity.
(AO3) What is the tipping point in minority influence?
The tipping point refers to the point at which the minority influence holds enough credibility to change the majority’s position. Xie et al found it to be approx 10% of a population needs to be committed opinion holders as it causes a snowball effect.
(-AO3) culture bias?
Minority influence study is conducted in western culture so it may be difficult to apply elsewhere such as in Collectivist cultures maybe less likely to conform to minority influence as they value the group over the individual.
They may see for minority as a threat to the majority so Moscovici study may not be applicable here.
