Social Influence - Minority Influence and Social Change Flashcards
What is minority influence?
Minority influence refers to how one person or small group influences the beliefs and behaviour of other people. The minority may influence just one person, or a group of people (the majority) - this is different from conformity where the majority does the influencing (conformity is sometimes referred to as ‘majority influence’).
What are key aspects of minority influence?
- A minority changes the opinions of others through internalisation.
- Consistency: Means the minority’s view gains more interest.
- Commitment: Helps gain attention. (e.g. through extreme activities).
- Flexibility: The minority should balance consistency and flexibility so they don’t appear rigid.
- Snowball effect: The minority becomes the majority.
How does a minority change the opinions of others through internalisation?
Minority influence leads to internalisation - both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed.
What are the three processes of internalisation in regards to minority influence?
- consistency
- commitment
- flexibility
How does consistency mean the minority’s view gains more interest? What are the two types of consistency?
Consistency makes others rethink their own views.
- Synchronic consistency: people in the minority are all saying the same thing.
- Diachronic consistency: they’ve been saying the same thing for some time.
How does commitment help gain attention? What is the augmentation principle?
Activities must create some risk to the minority to demonstrate commitment to the cause.
Augmentation principle: majority pay even more attention.
What is the importance of flexibility?
Nemeth (1986) argued that being consistent and repeating the same arguments and behaviours is seen as rigid and off-putting to the majority. Instead, the minority should adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguments.
How can the snowball effect be seen in minority influence?
Over time, more people become ‘converted’ - switch from the minority to the majority. The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. Gradually the minority view becomes the majority and social change has occurred.
Procedure
Moscovici et al. (1969) The Blue-Green Slides
A group of six people viewed a set of 36 blue-green coloured slides varying in intensity, then stated whether the slides were blue or green.
The study had three conditions:
- Confederates consistently said the slides were green.
- Confederates were inconsistent about the colour of the slides.
- A control group - no confederates.
Findings and Conclusions
Moscovici et al. (1969) The Blue-Green Slides
- Consistent minority condition: Participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials; 32% gave the same answer on at least one trial.
- Inconsistent minority condition: Agreement fell to 1.25%.
- Control group: Participants wrongly identified colour 0.25% of the time.
What are the strengths of minority influence?
- Research evidence demonstrates the importance of consistency.
- Research evidence shows change to minority position involves deeper thought.
- Research supports the involvement of internalisation in minority influence.
What are the weaknesses of minority influence?
- A limitation is minority influence research often involves artificial tasks.
- Applications of minority influence research are limited.
Why is research evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency a strength?
Serge Moscovici et al. (1969) found a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion.
Wood et al. (1994) conducted a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities seen as being consistent were most influential.
This confirms that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.
What research evidence shows change to minority position involves deeper thought?
Martin et al. (2003) gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint, and attitudes measured. Then they heard an endorsement of the view from either a minority or a majority. Finally they heard a conflicting view; attitudes measured again.
People were less willing to change their opinions to the new conflicting view if they had listened to a minority group than if they listened to a majority group.
This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.
What research supports the involvement of internalisation in minority influence?
Moscovici varied his study: participants wrote their answers down, so their responses were private. Agreement with the minority was greater.
This shows that internalisation took place. Members of the majority had been reluctant to admit their ‘conversion’ publically.
This shows people may be influenced by a minority but don’t admit it, therefore the effect of the minority is not apparent.
Why is minority influence research often involving artificial tasks a weakness?
Moscovici’s task was identifying the colour of a slide, far removed from how minorities try to change majority opinion in real life. In jury decision-making and political campaigning, outcomes are vastly more important, maybe a matter of life or death. Findings of studies lack external validity and are limited in what they tell us about how minority influence works in real-life situations.
How are applications of minority influence research limited?
Studies make a clear distinction between majority and minority, but real-life situations are more complicated. The difference is about more than just numbers. Majorities usually have power and status. Minorities are committed and tight-knit groups whose members know and support each other. Minority influence research rarely reflects the dynamics of these groups so findings may not apply to real-life minority influence situations which exert a more powerful influence.
What is the process of minority influence?
- Drawing attention - through commitment and providing social proof and evidence for the minority viewpoint.
- Consistency - of the message drawing on synchronic and diachronic consistency.
- Deeper processing - of the issue where the majority start to question the status quo.
- Augmentation principle - as demonstrated through commitment.
- Snowball effect - where more members of the majority convert to the minority at speed.
- Social cryptomnesia - where there is a memory that social change occurred, but you are not certain how it happened.
How did civil rights marches draw attention to segregation?
Segregation in 1950s America: places such as schools and restaurants in the Southern States were exclusive to whites. Civil rights marches drew attention to the situation by providing social proof of the problem.
How did the minority stay consistent?
People took part in the marches on a large scale. Even though it was a minority of the American population, they displayed consistency of message and intent.
How was deeper processing displayed?
This attention meant thatmany people who had accepted the status quo began thinking about the unjustness of it.
How was commitment displayed?
‘Freedom riders’ were mixed racial groups who got on buses in the South to challenge separate seating for black people. Many were beaten and suffered mob violence.
How was the snowball effect displayed?
Civil rights activists (e.g. Martin Luther King) gradually got the attention of the US government. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed, prohibiting discrimination - a change from minority to majority support for civil rights.
What is social cryptomnesia?
This refers to people having a memory that a change happened but not remembering how. Social change came about but some people have no memory of the events leading to that change.
