Minority Influence

Question 1

What is minority influence?

Answer 1

• Occurs when a minority of people (or just one) persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
• Likely to stem from ISI
• Leads to internalisation or ‘conversion’

Question 2

Outline the three characteristics for minority influence

Answer 2

• Consistency: If the minority is consistent (both overtime - diachronic - and with one another - synchronic) people consider their viewpoint more carefully
• Commitment: Minorities must show commitment to their cuase so thast people take them seriously, ‘augmentation principle’ is when people engage in extreme activities or make personal sacrifices to draw attention and prove their commitment to a cause
• Flexibility: Minorities who are flexible and meet the majority ‘half-way’ are more influential than those who are fixed n their views (appearing narrow-minded and uncooperative)

Question 3

Outline a key study into minority influence

Answer 3

• Moscovici
• 6 participants (including 2 confederates)
• Shown 36 blue slides which vaired in intensity
• Participants were asked to state the colour (blue or green) of a slide
• Consistent condition (confederates called all the slides green) = conversion on 8% of trials, 32% converted at least once
• Inconsistent condition (confederates called two-thirds of the slides green) = 1.25% converted at least once
• Control group (to ensure that it was not the task difficulty, but actually the presence of minority influence) = 0.25% answered incorrectly and misidentified the slide as green

Question 4

What is the “snowball effect”?

Answer 4

• The more people who ‘convert’ the faster the rate of conversion becomes; this is called the ‘snowball effect’
• Gradually the minority view becomes the accepted majority view and change has occurred

Question 5

Outline two strengths of minority influence

Answer 5

P: Research evidence supports the need for successful minorities to be consistent with each other and across time
Ev: Moscovici had 6 participants, 2 were confederates and 4 were naive participants. Had to distunguish if 36 blue slides were blue or green. Consistent condition = confederates call all slides green + 32% conversion rate. Inconsistent condition = confederates call two thirds of the slides green + 1.25% conversion rate. Control group with no confederates to assess if conversion was due to minority influence or an ambiguous task + 0.25% answered incorrectly
Ex: This suggests that minorities do need to show consistency with each other and over time for conversion from to occur
L: We can conclude that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

P: Supporting research of flexibility as part of minority influence.
Ev: Nemeth constructed mock jury where participants and a confederate were instructed to discuss and agree upon a compensation to give a ski lift accident victim. When the confederate would not change from a low and unreasonable amount, the majority stuck together at a much higher amount. However when the confederate changed/compromised his compensation offer, so did the majority.
Ex: This suggests that when the confederate was more negotiable with the compensation offer the majority also became more flexible and were able to come to an agreement
L: Therefore, flexibility plays a key role for a minority to successfully influence a majority group, which increases the validity of the theory.

Question 6

Outline one limitation of minority influence

Answer 6

P: Most research investigating minority influence fails to mirror real life
Ev: Asch’s and Moscovici’s studies laboratory experiments = artificial. Tasks lacked mundane realism because they were not something that we would do in our everyday lives (i.e. distinguishing line lengths or blue/green slides). Led to demand characteristics and caused a change in participants’ behaviour. In addition, controlled laboratory studies always make a clear and obvious distinction between majority and minority groups. In real life situations, the division is much more complicated than numbers.
Ex: Lack ecological validity because of artificial environment and unrealistic task so results are not applicable to real life scenarios. Moreover demand characteristics would have caused participants’ behaviour to be unreliable and not true to how we would act in real world scenarios so the studies are therefore unreflective of real life.
L: Therefore more realistic research should be carried out to investigate minority influence