Social Influence-Minority influence

Question 1

Minority influence and Behavioural style

Definition of minority influence?

Answer 1

A form of social influence where members of the majority group change their beliefs or behaviours as a result of their exposure to a persuasive minority

Question 2

Three ways the minority’s can be effective?

Answer 2

Consistency, Commitment, Flexibility

Con/Com/Flex

Question 3

What does consistency do in regard to influence?

What trait does it show

Answer 3

Get others to reassess the situation and consider the issue more carefully.

Confidence in view (Nemeth 2010)

Question 4

What did Wood et al. (1994) find in his meta analysis of 97 minority’s influence studies?

Answer 4

Minorities who were perceived as being especially consistent in expressing their position were particularly influential

Question 5

In what study was consistency investigate in?

Answer 5

Moscovici et al. (1969)

Question 6

What does commitment suggest?

Answer 6

Certainty and devotion to a cause or activity

Question 7

The greater the perceived commitment =

Answer 7

= the greater the influence

Question 8

What does Mugny (1982) suggest about flexibility?

Answer 8

It is more effective at changing majority opinion that rigidity of arguments

Question 9

How did Mugny argue a rigid minority that refuse to compromise are perceived?

Answer 9

They risk being perceived as dogmatic (narrow-minded) refusing to appreciate other justified opinions

Question 10

How would an overly flexible minority who are too prepared to compromise be perceived?

Answer 10

They risk appearing inconsistent

Question 11

Mugny claims that some degree of flexibility is more effective that none at all

Answer 11

Mugny claims that some degree of flexibility is more effective that none at all

Question 12

Key study:
Moscovici et al. (1969)

Procedure -

How many people in a group

How many were naive participants

How many were minority confederates

Answer 12

6 per group

4 naive participants

2 minority confederates

Question 13

What were they shown in Moscovcis (1969) study?

Answer 13

Series of blue slides that varied only in intensity

Question 14

What were ppts asked to do?

Answer 14

Judge the colour of each slide

Question 15

What happened in the consistent experimental condition?

Answer 15

The two confederates repeatedly called blue slides “green”

🍀 said green on every trial

Question 16

What happened in the inconsistent condition?

Answer 16

Confederates called slides green on 2/3’s of trials and on the remaining 1/3 of trials called slides blue

Question 17

What happened in the control condition?

Answer 17

6 naive participants with no confederates and called they called the slides blue through-out

Question 18

Moscovci et al. (1969)

Findings:
What percent of trials had the consistent minority influenced the naive participants to say green on?

Answer 18

Just over 8%

Question 19

What affect did the inconsistent minority and control have? 🌾

Answer 19

Exerted very little influence

Question 20

After the main study what was ppts asked to do?

Answer 20

Sort 16 coloured discs from either blue or green

Question 21

What was interesting about 3 blue and 3 green discs

What was the case with the remaining 10 discs?

Answer 21

3 were unambiguously from the blue end of the spectrum and another 3 were unambiguously from the green end

They were ambiguous and could be considered either blue or green

Question 22

What was the case with those participants in the consistent condition sorting the discs in comparisons to those in the inconsistent condition?

Where was the effects greater and what did it suggest?

Answer 22

Judged more chips to be green than those in the inconsistent condition

With ppts who hadn’t gone along with minority during experiment suggesting influence was more private than public

Question 23

Evaluation of minority influence:

Research support for flexibility

What did Nemeth and Brillmayer (1987) do to research flexibility?

Answer 23

Stimulated jury situation discussing the amount of compensation to paid to someone involved in a ski-lift accident with either a rigid confederate and a compromised confederate

Question 24

What effect did the rigid confederate have?

Answer 24

No effect on other group members

Question 25

What effect did the compromising confederate have?

Answer 25

Exerted an influence on the rest of the group

Question 26

But when was negotiation most effective

Answer 26

Those who shifted later in negotiations which showed flexibility rather than caving in to majority

Question 27

Evaluation-
Real value of minority influence

What does Nemeth (2010) argue the minority opinion does?

Answer 27

Opens up the mind leading people to search for information and consider more options to make better decisions.

Question 28

How was the liberating effect of minority influence supported by Van Dyne and Saavsdra (1996)

Answer 28

Studied role of dissent in work groups finding that groups had improved decision quality when exposed to minority perspective.

Question 29

Evaluation:

Do we really process the minority message more?

What did mackie (1987) argue that minority’s didn’t do?

Answer 29

Their influence did not necessarily lead to greater processing

Question 30

Why did Mackie (1987) believe this?

And what does this mean about minority influence?

Answer 30

We believe the majority hold a similar view than us hence when the majority hold an alternative view we will consider it more carefully to understand why

(therefore minority message is less influential due to people not wasting time to understand its difference)