Social Influence - Minority Influence

Question 1

Minority influence:

Answer 1

• Societies are not typically static
  
  • Marked by innovation, change and development
  • If only majority influence, where would change come from?
  • Influence of minorities
  • However, many minorities lack power
  • How can (initially) powerless minorities come to exert influence?

Question 2

Social influence definitions:

Answer 2

· Majority influence (conformity) - “Social influence resulting from exposure to the opinions of a majority or the majority of one’s group” (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas, 2015, p. 247)
· Minority influence (innovation) - “Situation in which either an individual or a group in a numerical minority can influence the majority” (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas, 2015, p. 247)

Question 3

Theoretical background:

Answer 3

· The importance of behavioural style according to Moscovici
1. Consistency - over time and between members
2. Investment - significant personal or material sacrifice
3. Autonomy - no ulterior motives
4. Rigidity - not dogmatic, yet consistent

Question 4

Theoretical background - conversion theory:

Answer 4

• Moscovici developed a conflict model - provoke conversion
  
  • Proposes minority influence is qualitatively different from majority influence
  • Majority - primarily induces compliance (public conformity) through comparison processes (low attention to the issue)
  • Minority - private change through cognitive conflict and restructuring through validation processes (high attention to the issue)

Question 5

Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux (1969):

Answer 5

· 4 naïve and 2 confederates
· Colour perception task - actually blue slides that varied in intensity
· Consistent condition - confederates called all slides green
· Inconsistent condition - confederates called two-thirds of the slides green, one-third blue
· 0.2% green responses in control condition
· 1.1% green responses in inconsistent condition
· 8.2% green responses in consistent condition

Question 6

Colour thresholds:

Answer 6

· Ostensibly a second experiment - a different experimenter administered a standardised test of colour discrimination
· Each participant tested alone
· Both experimental groups showed lower threshold for green than the controls
· Minority - not just public behaviour but also private, cognitive changes

Question 7

Moscovici and Lage (1976):

Answer 7

· Compared minority and majority influence:
- Consistent minority (2 confederates; 4 naïve)
- Inconsistent minority (2 confederates; 4 naïve)
- A single consistent confederate
· Unanimous majority (3 confederates; 1 naïve)
· Non-unanimous majority (4 confederates; 2 naïve)

Question 8

Moscovici and Lage (1976) 2:

Answer 8

· Minority influence
· Overt responses:
- Two consistent confederates (10% green)
- Two inconsistent confederates (< 1% green)
- A single consistent confederate (1% green)

Question 9

Moscovici and Lage (1976) 3:

Answer 9

· Compared minority and majority influence
· Overt responses:
- Two consistent confederates (10% green)
- Unanimous majority (40% green)
- Non unanimous majority (12% green )
· But only the consistent minority condition shifted participants’ colour thresholds

Question 10

Latent or indirect effects:

Answer 10

· Conversion theory (1980):
- Attention to arguments > private acceptance
- Latent (time) and indirect effects

Question 11

Latent or indirect effects - Perez and Mugny (1987):

Answer 11

· exposure to pro-abortion message portrayed as either a majority or minority position
· Results:
- no minority influence on attitudes toward abortion
- Increase in support for birth control! (indirect change on a related issue)

Question 12

Latent or indirect effects - Alvaro and Crano (1997):

Answer 12

· exposure to a position advocating that gay people serve in the military in the US portrayed as either a majority or minority opinion
· Results:
- Minority influence produced no change on related attitudes
- Minority influence increased opposition to gun control! (indirect change on a related issue)

Question 13

Latent or indirect effects - Moscovici and Personnaz (1980):

Answer 13

· Blue-green slide paradigm
· Exposure to consistent minority
· After-image effects
· Controversial and hard to replicate

Question 14

Wood et al (1994):

Answer 14

· Meta-analysis of over 100 studies
· Minorities are generally less persuasive than majorities on direct measures
· But not on indirect measures
Persuasive compared to control conditions

Question 15

Processes:

Answer 15

· Systematic vs heuristic:
- Somewhat inconsistent findings
· Not simple story that:
- Minority > systematic processing
- Majority > heuristic processing

Question 16

Source-context-elaboration model (Martin and Hewstone, 2008):

Answer 16

· Elaboration = thinking about the message
- Different situations allow or encourage more or less elaboration (e.g., personal relevance)
· Low elaboration > heuristic
- Favours majority
· High elaboration > systematic processing
- Favours neither
· Intermediate elaboration > Conversion theory
- systematic processing of minority view

Question 17

Processes 2:

Answer 17

· Minorities appear to promote stronger attitudes
- More resistant to counter-persuasion attempts
- More predictive of behaviour
· Nemeth: difference between majority and minority influence is the type rather than the amount of thinking
- Majority > anxiety > narrow focus on the message
- Minority > relaxed > broader focus, divergent thinking

Question 18

Group membership:

Answer 18

· Minorities often belong to an outgroup
· We tend to be more persuaded by members of our ingroups (e.g., David & Turner, 1996)

Question 19

Processes 3:

Answer 19

· Self-categorization theory (John Turner)
- Referent informational influence
· Social influence:
- We perceive source disagrees with us
- Source is a member of our group
- We see the source’s position as prototypical, ie
- most typical of the in-group
- least typical of the out-group

Question 20

Other theories:

Answer 20

· For more on theories, including other ideas:
- Perez & Mugny: Dissociation Theory/Conflict Elaboration Theory
- Crano: Context/Comparison & the Leniency Contract
· See
- Gardikiotis (2011). Minority Influence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass
- Butera et al. (2018). Minority Influence. In The Oxford Handbook of Social Influence