Minority Influence

Question 1

what is minority influence?

Answer 1

situation where one person or a small group of people influence the beliefs and behaviour of other people

Question 2

what can minority influence lead to?

Answer 2

internalisation

Question 3

what are the 3 main processes involved in minority influence?

Answer 3

• consistency
• commitment
• flexibility

Question 4

what is consistency?

Answer 4

being persistent with your views

Question 5

what are the 2 types of consistency?

Answer 5

• synchronic consistency = people in the minority group are all saying the same thing
• diachronic consistency = people have been saying the same thing for some time now

Question 6

what is commitment?And what does it include?

Answer 6

• minorities may engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views
• augmentation principle

Question 7

what is flexibility?

Answer 7

members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their views

Question 8

what was moscovici’s et al’s research?

Answer 8

• groups of 6 people shown 36 blue coloured slides which were varying in intensity
• they then had to say whether it was blue or green
• 3 conditions
  1) 2 confederates said green for all 36 = 8.42% of trials they said green
  2) confederates said on 24 green and on 12 blue = 1.25% of trials
  3) no confederates = 0.25%

Question 9

what are the evaluations of minority influence?

Answer 9

+ research support for consistency = Wood et al meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies, when minorities were consistent they were the most influential
+ research support for deeper processing = Martin et al showed ppt a particular message then they measured their agreement. Then shown minority or majority agreeing, then shown a conflicting viewpoint and agreement was measured again
- artificial tasks = lacks external validity