Social influence(minority influence)

Question 1

Minority influence -

Answer 1

A form of social influence where people of the majority group change their beliefs as a result to exposure to a persuasive minority.

Question 2

Consistency -

Answer 2

Consistent view points allow the majority to consider the viewpoint more carefully and a longer period of time. Wood, carried out a meta-analysis of 97 studies and found consistent minority groups were particularly influential. This is further demonstrated in the Moscovici study.

Question 3

Commitment -

Answer 3

Offers certainty and confidence in their beliefs and in the face of hostile majority. Due to staying with the minority it is seen as typically greater and therefore will be seen to be taken more seriously.

Question 3

Flexibility -

Answer 3

Flexibility is seen as the most significant factor as affecting the change in the majority position, negotiate their position instead of enforcing it. A rigid style offers little compromise and is seen as dogmatic and whereas a flexible approach seen as too flexible is not seen as committed or consistent enough to what they stand and believe in. Some flexibility is seen as more effective than none at all.

Question 4

Moscovici Key study - Procedure

Answer 4

• Each group compromised 4 naïve participants and two minority confederates
• Shown a series of blue sides that varied in intensity and were asked to judge the colour of the slide.
• Consistent condition the two confederates called the slides green on all occasions
  Inconsistent condition resulted in the confederates calling the slides green on 2/3 of the trials and the remaining 1/3 they called them blue.
• Control condition resulted in 6 naïve participants calling the slides blue always

Question 5

Moscovici Key study - findings

Answer 5

• Consistent minority influenced the Naïve participants on 8% of the trials
• Inconsistent minority influence administered very little influence on the participants and did not really differ from the control group.

Question 6

Moscovici after the study -

Answer 6

• Participants were asked to sort 16 coloured disks into either blue or green.
• 3 of each colour were unambiguous (obvious) (3 blue and green)
• The remaining 10 were ambiguous and could be considered either blue or green.
• Had to establish a threshold where every one side of the point would be classed blue and the other side classed as green.
• The confederates in both conditions previously (who were in the consistent and inconsistent group) set the threshold values.
• The consistent condition set those to be more green chips than the inconsistent condition.
• This effect was even greater on participants who didn’t even conform in the previous study before this.
• May suggest that initial influence was more private than public.

Question 7

What does Moscovici’s research suggest?

Answer 7

Although conformity levels are no where near the influence of the majority levels (demonstrated by Asch) but it shows that a consistent minority is much more influential than an inconsistent one when determining conformity.

Question 8

Research support of flexibility -

Answer 8

Support for flexibility in a jury situation, Group members of the court discussed the amount of compensation to be paid to someone who was involved in a ski-lift accident.
-When a confederate put forward a different POV and refused to change his position, this had no effect.
-A confederate who did compromise and showed a degree of shift towards what the majority wanted, did exert an influence on the rest of the group.
- This was seen evident only in the confederate who shifted later rather than earlier (where they were seen to be caved in by the majority)
This suggest the support of flexibility and the level of compromise is significant on achieving minority influence on a majority in a ecological validity study.

Question 9

Is the message more significant in terms of the minority or majority? -

Answer 9

Mackie argues that the minority do not lead to greater processing, but it’s the majority who are more likely to create greater information processing. This may be because the majority group tend to share similar beliefs as us. People tend to not waste time considering why a minority’s message is different, therefore it tends to be less than more influential.