Social Influence - Minority Influence and Social Change

Question 1

What is minority influence?

Answer 1

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’).

Question 2

What are key aspects of minority influence?

Answer 2

• 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.

Question 3

How does a minority change the opinions of others through internalisation?

Answer 3

Minority influence leads to internalisation - both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed.

Question 4

What are the three processes of internalisation in regards to minority influence?

Answer 4

1. consistency
2. commitment
3. flexibility

Question 5

How does consistency mean the minority’s view gains more interest? What are the two types of consistency?

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

How does commitment help gain attention? What is the augmentation principle?

Answer 6

Activities must create some risk to the minority to demonstrate commitment to the cause.
Augmentation principle: majority pay even more attention.

Question 7

What is the importance of flexibility?

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

How can the snowball effect be seen in minority influence?

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Procedure

Moscovici et al. (1969) The Blue-Green Slides

Answer 9

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:

1. Confederates consistently said the slides were green.
2. Confederates were inconsistent about the colour of the slides.
3. A control group - no confederates.

Question 10

Findings and Conclusions

Moscovici et al. (1969) The Blue-Green Slides

Answer 10

• 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.

Question 11

What are the strengths of minority influence?

Answer 11

• 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.

Question 12

What are the weaknesses of minority influence?

Answer 12

• A limitation is minority influence research often involves artificial tasks.
• Applications of minority influence research are limited.

Question 13

Why is research evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency a strength?

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

What research evidence shows change to minority position involves deeper thought?

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What research supports the involvement of internalisation in minority influence?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Why is minority influence research often involving artificial tasks a weakness?

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

How are applications of minority influence research limited?

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

What is the process of minority influence?

Answer 18

1. Drawing attention - through commitment and providing social proof and evidence for the minority viewpoint.
2. Consistency - of the message drawing on synchronic and diachronic consistency.
3. Deeper processing - of the issue where the majority start to question the status quo.
4. Augmentation principle - as demonstrated through commitment.
5. Snowball effect - where more members of the majority convert to the minority at speed.
6. Social cryptomnesia - where there is a memory that social change occurred, but you are not certain how it happened.

Question 19

How did civil rights marches draw attention to segregation?

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

How did the minority stay consistent?

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

How was deeper processing displayed?

Answer 21

This attention meant thatmany people who had accepted the status quo began thinking about the unjustness of it.

Question 22

How was commitment displayed?

Answer 22

‘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.

Question 23

How was the snowball effect displayed?

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

What is social cryptomnesia?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

What are lessons from conformity research?

Answer 25

1. Dissenters make social change more likely.

2. Majority influence and normative social influence.

Question 26

How do dissenters make social change more likely?

Answer 26

Asch’s research: variation where one confederate always gave correct answers. This broke the power of the majority encouraging others to dissent. This demonstrates potential for social change.

Question 27

How does normative social influence encourage majority influence?

Answer 27

Environmental and health campaigns exploit conformity by appealing to NSI. They provide information about what others are doing, e.g. reducing litter by printing normative messages on bins. Social change is encouraged by drawing attention to the majority’s behaviour.

Question 28

What are lessons from obedience research?

Answer 28

1. Disobedient models make change more likely.

2. Gradual commitment leads to ‘drift’.

Question 29

How do disobedient models make change more likely?

Answer 29

Milgram’s research: disobedient models in the variation where a confederate refused to give shocks. The rate of obedience in genuine participants plummeted.

Question 30

How does gradual commitment lead to ‘drift’?

Answer 30

Zimbardo (2007): once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one. People ‘drift’ into a new kind of behaviour.

Question 31

What are the strengths of social influence and social change?

Answer 31

• Research support for role of normative social influence in social change.

Question 32

What are the weaknesses of social influence and social change?

Answer 32

• Minority influence is only indirectly effective in creating social change.
• The nature of deeper processing has been questioned.
• Identification is an important variable overlooked in minority influence research.
• There are methodological issues in this area of research.

Question 33

What research supports the role of NSI in social change?

Answer 33

Nolan et al. (2008) hung messages on front doors of houses. The key message was most residents are trying to reduce energy usage. Significant decreases in energy use compared to control group who saw messages to save energy with no reference to other people’s behaviour. So conformity can lead to social change through the operation of NSI.

Question 34

How is minority influence only indirectly effective in creating social change?

Answer 34

Nemeth (1986) suggests the effects of minority influence are indirect and delayed. It took decades for attitudes against drink-driving and smoking to shift.

Indirect: the majority is influenced only on matters related to the central issue, and not the issue itself.
Delayed: effects not seen for some time.

Using minority influence to explain social change is limited because it shows that effects are fragile and its role in social influence.

Question 35

Why is the nature of deeper processing being questioned a weakness?

Answer 35

Moscovici suggested that minority influence causes individuals to think deeply - which is a different cognitive process from majority influence.

Mackie (1987) disagrees, arguing that majority influence creates deeper processing if you do not share their views. We believe that others think in the same ways as us; when we find that a majority believes differently, we are forced to think hard about their arguments.

So a central element of minority influence is challenged and may be incorrect, casting doubt on the validity of Moscovici’s theory.

Question 36

Why is identification being an important variable that is overlooked in minority influence research a weakness?

Answer 36

Bashir et al. (2013) suggest people are less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways because they wanted to avoid the label of being minority ‘environmentalists’. Participants rated environmental activists negatively (‘tree huggers’). Minorities wanting social change should avoid behaving in ways that reinforce stereotypes; off-putting to the majority. This suggests that being able to identify with a minority group is just as important as agreeing with their views in terms of changing behaviour.

Question 37

Why is there being methodological issues in this area of research a weakness?

Answer 37

Explanations of social change rely on studies by Moscovici, Asch and Milgram. These can be evaluated in terms of methodology, mainly over the artificial nature of the tasks and whether the group dynamics reflect real-life. These criticisms apply to the evaluation of explanations for the link between social influence processes and social change.

Question 38

What is social change?

Answer 38

Significant alteration over time in behaviour patterns, cultural values and norms. Examples of significant social changes having long-term effects include the industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the feminist movement. Includes the processes of conformity, obedience and minority influence.

Question 39

What are the four levels of action for change?

Answer 39

• individual
• friends and family
• community and institutions
• economy and policy

Individuals can have the largest personal impact by focusing on levels 2 and 3.

Question 40

What is the rate of change?

Answer 40

• Social change is often slow, e.g. attitudes about smoking or drink driving. Required a change in the law.
• Nemeth argues change is delayed because the majority do not focus on the central issue.
• Change is delayed because the results are not instantaneous.