Minority Influence

Question 1

What is 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

Why do people identify with the majority?

Answer 2

To try and fit in with their opinions without careful scrutiny of the message.

Question 3

Why don’t people identity with the minority?

Answer 3

Minority influence creates a conversion process whereby, provided the minority adapt a consistent and committed approach, people scrutinise the message itself.
They want to understand why the minority hold this position.

Question 4

What happens when people convert to the minority position?

Answer 4

Tends to be deeper and longer lasting as people have internalised the minority’s point of view.

Question 5

What must happen for minority influence to be effective?

Answer 5

Minorities must be…
Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility

Question 6

What does consistency do?

Answer 6

If the minority are consistent, others come to reassess the situation and consider the issue more carefully.

There must be a reason why the minority takes the position it does and is sufficiently confident to maintain it over time and with each other (Nemeth, 2010).

Question 7

What did Wood (1994) do?

Answer 7

Carried out a meta-analysis of 97 studies of minority influence, and found that minorities who were perceived as being especially consistent in expressing their position were actually particularly influential.

Question 8

What does commitment do?

Answer 8

It suggests certainty, confidence and courage in the face of a hostile majority.
May persuade majority group members to take then seriously, or even convert to the majority position.

Question 9

What is consistency?

Answer 9

Minority influence is effective provided there is stability in the expressed position over time and agreement among different members of the minority.

Question 10

What is commitment?

Answer 10

The degree to which members of a minority are dedicated to a particular cause or activity.
The greater the perceived commitment, the greater the influence

Question 11

What is flexibility?

Answer 11

A willingness to be flexible and to compromise when expressing a position.

Question 13

What did Mugny (1982) suggest?

Answer 13

That flexibility is more effective at changing majority opinion than rigidity of arguments.
Because minorities are typically powerless compared to the majority, they must negotiate their position with the majority rather than try to enforce it.

Question 14

What’s the problem with flexibility?

Answer 14

A rigid minority that refuses to compromise risks being perceived as dogmatic.
However, a minority that is too flexible and too prepared to compromise risks being seen as inconsistent.

Neither approach is particularity effective at persuading the majority to shift to the minority’s position, but some is better than none (Mugny).

Question 15

What’s the key study for minority influence?

Answer 15

Moscovici (1969)

Question 16

What was the procedure of Moscovici’s study?

Answer 16

Each group comprised 4 naive participants and a minority of 2 confederates.
They were shown a series of blue slides that varied only in intensity and were asked to judge the colour of each slide.

In the ‘consistent’ experimental condition, the 2 confederates repeatedly called the blue slides ‘green’ (they said green on every trial).

In the ‘inconsistent’ condition, the confederates called the slides ‘green’ on 2/3 of the trials, and on the remaining 1/3 of trials called the slides ‘blue’.

In a control condition, comprising 6 naive participants and no confederates, participants called the slides ‘blue throughout’.

Question 17

What were the findings of Moscovici’s study?

Answer 17

The consistent minority influenced the naive participants to say ‘green’ on over 8% of the trials.

The inconsistent minority exerted very little influence, and did not differ significantly from the control group.

Question 18

What did Moscovici do after the main study was over?

Answer 18

Participants were asked individually to sort 16 coloured discs into either ‘blue’ or ‘green’.
3 of these discs were unambiguously from the blue end of the colour spectrum and 3 were unambiguously from the green end.

The remaining 10 discs were ambiguous in that they might be considered either blue or green. To be able to do this, participants had to establish a threshold point where everything one side of that point would then be ‘judged’ blue, and everything on the other side ‘green’.

Question 19

What did Moscovici find after the main study was over?

Answer 19

Individuals who had been in the consistent and inconsistent minority conditions set their thresholds at different points.

With the result that those in the consistent condition judged more of the chips to be green than those in the inconsistent condition.

This effect was even greater for those participants who hadn’t gone along with the minority during the experiment, suggesting that the initial influence was more at a private than public level.

Question 20

What are the evaluative points?

Answer 20

Research support for flexibility 
The real ‘value’ of minority influence 
Do we really process the minority’s message more
A ‘tipping point’ for commitment 
Minority influence in name only

Question 21

What is meant by research support for flexibility?

Answer 21

Nemeth and Brilmayer (1987) studied the role of flexibility in a stimulated jury situation where group members discussed the amount of compensation to be paid to someone involved in a ski-lift accident.

When a confederate put forward an alternative point of view and refused to change his position, this has no effect on other group members.
A confederate who compromised and therefore showed some degree of shift towards the majority did exert an influence on the rest of the group.

However, this was only evident in those who shifted late in negotiations (perceived as showing flexibility) rather than those who shifted earlier (perceived as having ‘caved in’ to the majority).

Question 22

What is meant by the real ‘value’ of minority influence?

Answer 22

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Question 25

What does dogmatic mean?

Answer 25

Narrow minded and refusing to consider other opinions may be justified