Minority influence

Question 1

Minority influence

Answer 1

-Minority influence is the process of converting a majority group, to the opinions of a minority

Question 2

Consistency

Answer 2

-Consistency is if members of a minority group repeat the same message over time (diachronic consistency) and all members of the group repeat the same message (synchronic consistency) then the majority group is more likely to consider the views of the minority group and reconsider their own

Question 3

Commitment

Answer 3

-Commitment is when the minority group suffers for their beliefs and still holds them
-This will cause the majority group to pay more attention to the minority group and their ideas, as they consider the cause behind their actions

Question 4

Flexibility

Answer 4

-If minority groups are dogmatic and unwavering; they will not be persuasive
-However, if they are able to appear to consider valid counterarguments and show slight compromise, then the majority is more likely to move closer to the majority opinion

Question 5

Balance between flexibility and consistency

Answer 5

-Although flexibility and consistency seem to contradict each other, it is important to have a balance between the two; in order to appear to the majority as reasonable and open-minded as well as having opinions that are well thought through and stable

Question 6

Snowball effect

Answer 6

-The snowball effect refers to the idea that the process of minority influence is slow, with each member of the minority only being able to convert a few members of the majority
-However, this rate of conversion speeds up as more and more of the majority are converted to the minority group/opinion
-Additionally, a minority idea is more acceptable as the size of the minority increases

Question 7

Positive research evaluation for consistency (Moscovici 1969)
-However consistent minority only influence some people

Answer 7

-Consistency has been shown to help minorities influence/ convert members of the majority; Moscovici (1969) displayed 36 slides of different shades of blue to a group of four real participants and 2 confederates (acting as a minority)
-If the confederate minority was consistent in saying that all of the slides were green, the real participants would agree in 8% of the trials, however if the minority was inconsistent then the real participants agreed on 1% of the trials
-However, as 68% of participants did not conform, even when the minority was consistent this suggests that only some people are influenced by a consistent majority group

Question 8

Positive research evaluation for flexibility (Nemeth 1987)

Answer 8

-Flexibility has been shown to help minorities influence/convert the views of the majority; Nemeth (1987) asked three participants and one confederate to form a mock jury, deciding the compensation of a victim of an (imaginary) ski lift incident
-This incident was very serious and the real participants were originally considering compensation in the range of 150,00$ to 300,00$
-When the confederate was inflexible, arguing for the low compensation of $50,000 and not changing positions during negotiation, they were less able to convince the members of the majority than when they were flexible, starting at $50,000 but changing to $100,000 during negotiation

Question 9

Negative evaluation of research into factors affecting minority influence (highly artificial)

Answer 9

-A disadvantage of research into the factors affecting minority influence such as Nemeth and Moscovici is that they are highly artificial and may not be valid when generalising them to the wider population

Question 10

Positive evaluation (many real world examples+practical application for future movements)

Answer 10

-There are many real world examples of factors affecting minority influence such as commitment; the suffragettes showed commitment by going on hunger strike
-Additionally, these techniques can be used for future movements to enhance them and make them more convincing