12: Factors involved in Minority Influence

Question 1

3 factors involved in minority influence

Answer 1

• consistency
• commitment
• flexibility

Question 2

Outline Factors involved in Minority Influence
- consistency

Answer 2

one factor that plays a key role in minority influence is ‘consistency’.
it has been argued that a minority group in society is more likely to influence the majority group in society if they are consistent in their views.
this consistency may be synchronic consistency: agreement between people in the minority group and/or diachronic consistency: consistency over a long time period.
this consistency leads the majority to doubt themselves which can lead to behaviour change

Question 3

Evaluate Factors involved in Minority Influence: Consistency
- Strengths

Answer 3

P: evidence to support from Moscovici (1969)
E/E: found that when a minority of confederates consistently said blue slides were green (the incorrect answer) they had a larger influence over the majority group of ppts (8.42%) than when the confederates were inconsistent (1.25%)
L: suggests minorities have more influence over the majority when they are consistent in their view

P: further evidence to support from Wood et al (1994)
E: carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies
E: found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential
L: suggests there is a great deal of evidence to support the role of consistency in minority influence

Question 4

Outline Factors involved in Minority Influence
- commitment

Answer 4

another factor playing a role in minority influence is ‘commitment’.
sometimes minorites engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views.
it is important that these extreme activities are at some risk to the minority because this demonstrates commitment to the cause (eg. suffragettes, rosa parks, MLK)
majority groups then pay even more attention to the minority issue (the augmentation principle)

Question 5

Evaluate Factors involved in Minority Influence: Commitment
- Strengths

Answer 5

P: Evidence to support from Xie et al (2011)
E/E: found that when ppts communicated in a social network w people who were committed to an alternative POV to their own, this had the most significant influence on them adopting this new POV
L: supports the importance of the role of commitment in minority influence

Question 6

Outline Factors involved in Minority Influence
- flexibility

Answer 6

Nemeth has suggested that the downside to being extremely consistent and repeating the same arguments over and over again is that it can be seen as rigid and unreasonable.
Therefore, Nemeth argues that members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their POV and accept reasonable counter-arguments.
Therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by showing a willingness to compromise

Question 7

Evaluate Factors involved in Minority Influence: Flexibility
- Strengths

Answer 7

P: evidence to support from Nemeth and Brilmayer (1987)
E: testes smock jury where group discussed the amount of compensation that should be given to someone in a ski lift accident
E: found that when a confederate put forward an alternative POV and refused to change his position this has no influence on the group. however, when they showed flexibility and compromised this did have an influence on the group.
L: suggests flexibility may play an im or role in minority influence, perhaps more so than consistency
E: since there are more serious consequences to decisions made in a jury, this may not be representative of real life everyday MI situations

Question 8

Evaluate Factors involved in Minority Influence
- Limitations

Answer 8

P: problem w understanding factors involved in MI is that our understanding is based on research that is low in ecological validity
E: although laboratory setting is controlled it can also be seen as artificial because it doenst represent real-life
E: for example, in real life minorities are usually arguing in favour of important social issues rather than more trivial tasks such as colour judgement (Moscovici) or discussions on social networks (Xie et al)
L: findings may not generalise to real like minority influence situations

P: major limitation is that real life minority groups are more complicated than much of the research suggests
E: there is more involved in the difference between a minority and a majority than just numbers
E: for example, majorities usually have much more power and status, while minorities can be tight-knit groups whose members know each other well and turn to each other for support
L: minority influence research may over-simplify the processes involved