Minority Influence

Question 1

Minority influence:

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours

Question 2

Consistency

Answer 2

• If the minority take a consistent approach people start to consider the issue more carefully.
- Synchronic consistency: they’re all saying the same thing
- Diachronic consistency: they’ve been saying the same thing for some time.
• Consistent action.

Question 3

Commitment

Answer 3

• When a minority adopts a committed approach to its position it may become difficult to ignore.
• E.g. the green party – core principles still the same
• Because joining a minority has a greater cost for the individual, they need to
know the serious nature of the campaign or issue.
• Augmentation principle- majority pays attention

Question 4

Flexibility

Answer 4

• Nemeth (1986) “consistency can be interpreted negatively”
• They must negate their position with the majority – have some
flexibility / compromise to make changes.
• Balance between consistency and flexibility

Question 5

The process of change

Answer 5

• Consistent and passionate about something new
  -Deeper processing is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority view point.
• Over time people are converted- the more it happens, the faster the rate of conversion.

Question 6

What does Moscovici’s experiment suggest

Answer 6

-that minorities can influence majorities.
• However, it indicates that this influence is much more effective when the minority are consistent in their responses.
• When the minority gave inconsistent answers, they were largely ignored by the majority.
• Later research has largely confirmed these findings.

Question 7

Research support for flexibility:

Answer 7

• Nemeth et al. (1974) repeated Moscovici’s experiment but instructed participants to answer with all of the colours they saw, rather than a single colour.
- ‘green-blue’ for example • Three variations:
- Said all of the slides were ‘green’
- Said the slides were ‘green’ or ‘blue’ at random
- Said the brighter slides were ‘green-blue’ and the duller slides were ‘green’
• Inconsistency had no effect on the participants
• Varied response- slightly effected participants
• Consistent but flexible

Question 8

Research support for flexibility skying experiment

Answer 8

– discussing the amount of compensation paid to someone in a ski lift accident.
• Confederate who put forward an alternative view from the beginning and refused to change their mind – no effect.
• Confederate who compromised and changed their position late – exerted influence

Question 9

research support for consistency

Answer 9

• Wood et al. (1994)- meta analysis of 97 similar studies
- Consistent minorities were the most influential

Question 10

Research support for depth of thought - Martin

Answer 10

• Change to the minority position does involve deeper processing of ideas
• Martin et al. (2003)
- Participants were less willing to change their opinions if they listened to a minority group (based on their original attitude score), than a majority.
- Suggested that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.
• This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect

Question 11

The real ‘value’ of minority influence -
support

Answer 11

• Found that dissent, in the form of minority opinion ‘opens’ the mind. • Dissenters liberate people to say what they believe and they stimulate divergent and creative thought even when they are wrong.
• Groups had improved decision quality when exposed to a minority influence

Question 12

research support for internalisation

Answer 12

• Private agreement with the minority was greater when participants
wrote their answers down
• Even people who supported the majority, changed their views and were convinced by the minority- but were reluctant to admit this publicly.
- Feared being called radical or considered weird or awkward

Question 13

A ‘tipping point’ for commitment – further research

Answer 13

• The snowball effect - members of the majority slowly move towards the minority.
• Once the minority grows in size it reaches a tipping point and picks up momentum so that more and more majority members convert.
• Eventually the minority grows into a snowball so large that it becomes the majority.

Question 14

Moscovici et al., (1969) Minority influence method

Answer 14

This was a laboratory experiment investigating minority influence using 192 women.
In groups of six at a time, participants judged the colour of 36 slides. All of the slides were blue, but the brightness of the blue varied. Two of the six participants in the group were confederates.
In one condition the confederates called all 36 slides ‘green’ (consistent) and in another condition they called 24 ‘green’ and 12 ‘blue’ (inconsistent). A control group was also used which contained no confederates.

Question 15

Moscovici results

Answer 15

• In the control group, the participants called the slides ‘green’ 0.25% of the time.
• In the consistent condition, 8.4% of the time, participants adopted the minority position and called the slides ‘green’ and 32% of participants called the slides ‘green’ at least once
• In the inconsistent group, the participants moved to the minority position of calling the slides ‘green’ only 1.25% of the time.

Question 16

Moscovici conclusion

Answer 16

The confederates were in the minority but their views appear to have influenced the real participants.
The use of the two conditions illustrated that the minority had more influence when they were consistent in calling the slides ‘green’

Question 17

Moscovici evaluation negatives

Answer 17

 Lacked ecological validity as it was a laboratory experiment and the task were artificial
 The participants may have felt that judging the colour of the slides was a trivial exercise and they may have acted differently if their principles were involved
 The results cannot be generalised as only women participated

Question 18

Moscovici evaluation positives

Answer 18

 As there was a control group, we know that the participants were actually influenced by the minority rather than being independently unsure of the colour of the slides
 In a similar experiment, participants were asked to write down the colour rather than saying it out loud. In this conclusion, even more people agreed with the minority, which provides more support for minority influence.