Minority Influence

Question 1

What is Minority Influence?

Answer 1

Minority influence is a type of social influence just like conformity and obedience. It is where a minority (sometimes just one person or a small group) persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Minority influence leads to internalisation or conversion. It changes both public and private opinions in a person.

Question 2

Moscovici (1969) - Aim

Answer 2

He wanted to see if a consistent minority could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception task.

Question 3

Moscovici (1969) - Method

Answer 3

• His sample consisted of 172 female participants who were told that they were taking part in a colour perception task.
• The participants were placed in groups of 6 and shown 36 slides, which were all varying shades of blue.
• The participants had state out loud the colour of each slide.
• 2 of the 6 participants were confederates and in 1 condition (consistent) the 2 confederates said that all the 36 slides were green; in the 2nd condition (inconsistent), the confederates said that 24 of the slides were green and 12 were blue.

Question 4

Moscovici (1969) - Findings

Answer 4

• Moscovici found that in the consistent condition, the real participants agreed on 8.2% of the trials, whereas in the inconsistent condition, the real participants only agreed on 1.25% of the trials.
• This shows that a consistent minority is 6.95% more effective than an inconsistent minority and that consistency is an important factor in minority influence.
• Consistency and commitment are however linked. If a minority is consistent in their view, then they are also showing commitment to their cause.

Question 5

Moscovici (1969) - Conclusion

Answer 5

Moscovici demonstrates that consistency is an important factor for minority influence, however research also suggests that minorities require a degree of flexibility to remain persuasive and that rigid and dogmatic minorities are less effective.

Question 6

Nemeth (1969) - Aim

Answer 6

Nemeth (1986) investigated the idea of flexibility in which participants, in groups of 4, had to agree on the amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski-lift accident.

Question 7

Nemeth (1969) - Method

Answer 7

1 of the participants in each group was a confederate and there were 2 conditions: 1) when the minority argued for a low rate of compensation and refused to change his position (inflexible); 2) when the minority argued for a low rate of compensation but compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of compensation (flexible).

Question 8

Nemeth (1969) - Findings

Answer 8

Nemeth found that in the inflexible condition, the minority had little or no effect on the majority, however in the flexible condition, the majority was much more likely to compromise and change their view.

Question 9

Nemeth (1969) - Conclusion

Answer 9

Nemeth’s research highlights the importance of flexibility but questions the idea of consistency. On the one hand, Moscovici shows that minorities need to be consistent, whereas Nemeth shows that minorities need to be flexible.

Question 10

What are the 2 explanations for minority influence?

Answer 10

1) The snowball effect
2) The dissociation model

Question 11

1) The snowball effect

Answer 11

This term is used to describe what happens sometimes in minority influence. Once a few members of the majority start to move towards the minority position, the minority influence gathers momentum as its potential correctness is gradually paid attention by more people.

Question 12

2) The dissociation model

Answer 12

It has been proposed that minority groups influence majority group members by a process called social cryptoamnesia, meaning tat the minority ideas are assimilated by the majority viewpoint without those in the majority remembering where the ideas came from. The content and the source of the ideas become disassociated. In this way, although the content of the message is adopted, adopting the out-group identity can be resisted.

Question 13

What are the 3 situational ways minorities influence the majority?

Answer 13

1) Consistency
2) Commitment
3) Flexibility

Question 14

1) Consistency

Answer 14

• Needs to be over time and between individuals in the minority.
• It draws attention to the viewpoint, i.e. increases interest.
• Synchronic consistency - all saying the same thing.
• Diachronic consistency - over time.
• Makes people start to rethink their own view.

Question 15

2) Commitment

Answer 15

• Engage in extreme activities to get attention.
• Activities are risky to those who do them to show their commitment to their views.
• The majority pay more attention then - this is the argumentation principle.

Question 16

3) Flexibility

Answer 16

• This helps the minority not to be viewed negatively, helps soften the consistency factor. Being consistent all the time can come across as rigid and unbending - this will put off the majority and make the minority ineffective.
• Minorities need to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter-arguments.
• There has to be a balance between consistency and flexibility.

Question 17

What are the 3 dispositional ways minorities influence the majority?

Answer 17

1) Principles
2) Similarity
3) Current trends

Question 18

1) Principles

Answer 18

Minorities need to appear to be acting out of principle, not self-interest.

Question 19

2) Similarity

Answer 19

Are seen as similar to the majority in terms of age, gender and class.

Question 20

3) Current trends

Answer 20

Advocate views that are consistent with current social trends.

Question 21

Minority influence - strength

Answer 21

There is research evidence that demonstrates the importance of consistency. Moscovici et al’s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion. Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential. This suggests that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

Question 22

Minority influence - strength

Answer 22

There is research support for depth of thought. Martin et al (2003) gave participants a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support. One group of participants then heard a minority group agree with the initial view while another group heard this from a majority group. Participants are finally exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again. Martin et al found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with a majority group. This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how the minority influence process works.

Question 23

Minority influence - weakness

Answer 23

There is research against minority influence due to artificial tasks involved. Tasks such as differentiating colours presented on slides doesn’t reflect day-to-day tasks. In cases such as jury decision making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important and may be a matter of life and death. This means findings of minority influence studies such as Moscovici et al’s are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real-life social situations.