minority influence

Question 1

what is minority influence?

Answer 1

• where people reject the established norm of the majority and gradually move towards the position of the minority
• involves conversion and leads to internalisation

Question 2

what is consistency?

Answer 2

• stability in the minority over time and agreement between members of the minority

Question 3

what is commitment?

Answer 3

-dedication to a particular cause
- suggests certainty
- makes majority consider minority
- making a sacrifice or it being an inconvenience

Question 4

what is flexibility?

Answer 4

• a willingness to compromise when expressing a position
• more convincing than rigid arguments

Question 5

how does consistency affect minority influence?

Answer 5

• being consistent makes the majority reassess the situation more carefully
• must be a reason the minority takes the position they do

Question 6

how does commitment impact minority influence?

Answer 6

• difficult to dismiss the minority if it’s demonstrating certainty, courage and confidence
• persuade the majority to take them seriously

Question 7

how does flexibility impact minority influence?

Answer 7

• because minorities are typically powerless to majorities they must negotiate rather than in-force
• rigid minorities perceived as dogmatic
• don’t compromise too early on, only towards the end or else appear weak

Question 8

Moscovici (procedure)

Answer 8

• investigate consistency
• shown series of blue slides that varied in intensity
• asked to judge the colour of each side
• two confederates repeatedly call the slide green on every trial (consistent condition)
• call green on 2/3 (inconsistent)

Question 9

Moscovici (findings)

Answer 9

• consistent minority = over 8% on the trials said green
• inconsistent = little difference to control condition

Question 10

Moscovici part 2

Answer 10

• private
• coloured discs sorted into either blue or green
• 3 unambiguously blue and 3 unambiguously green
• participants in the consistent condition put more discs on the green slide than the blue
• intitial influence was on a private level also, not just public

Question 11

Moscovici evaluation

Answer 11

• can’t be generalised as colours isn’t an important discussion
• lab experiment so lacks ecological validity
• Nemeth and Brilmayer studied flexibility in fake jury situation
• confederates that refused to change position had no effect, where as ones that compromised did influence the group

Question 12

how does a minority produce social change?

Answer 12

• create attention
• cognitive conflict
• consistency
• commitment/augmentation principle
• snowball effect
• dissociation model

Question 13

what is “create attention”?

Answer 13

• minority draw attention to issues that may have been ignored by the majority e.g protests
• suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics to draw attention to their cause

Question 14

what is cognitive conflict?

Answer 14

• minority creates conflict between what the majority believe and the minority
• we are then motivated to reduce this conflict
• leads to majority to think more deeply about the issues

Question 15

how does consistency produce social change?

Answer 15

• minorities are more influential in bringing about social change if they express arguments consistently
• e.g. suffragettes gained their position over years and remained consistent

Question 16

what is the augmentation principle?

Answer 16

• if minority is willing to suffer for their views they are taken more seriously
• e.g. suffragettes risked imprisonment and death from hunger strike

Question 17

what is the snowball effect?

Answer 17

• minority initially has small impact
• minority spreads as more and more people consider it
• promoted until reaches a “tipping point”
• leading to wide scale social changes
• e.g. acceptance of the suffragettes

Question 18

what is the dissociation model?

Answer 18

• “social forgetting”
• majority don’t like to be associated with minority
• as a result minority influence takes longer than majority influence
• over time the minority becomes assimilated into the majority
• content and original source become dissociated
• e.g. equal rights for men and women, but radical feminism existing

Question 19

role of majority in social change

Answer 19

social norms intervention:
- change risky behaviours e.g. binge drinking/ drunk driving
- identify misconception of norm
- identify actual group norm to encourage conformity towards majority
- e.g. advertising that most people don’t drink and drive