MINORITY INFLUENCE Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is MINORITY INFLUENCE?
- type of social influence
- motivates individuals to reject established majority group norms
What type of social influence is MAJORITY INFLUENCE and what speed does it have effect?
- normative or informational influence
- fast
What type of social influence is MINORITY INFLUENCE and what speed does it have effect?
- informational influence
- slow
What behaviours make a MINORITY GROUP more effective?
- consistent
- committed
- flexible
What is CONSISTENCY?
-minority keep consistent beliefs and attitudes to influence majority
What is the difference between INTRA-INDIVIDUAL consistency and INTER-INDIVIDUAL consistency?
INTRA=individuals in minority keep consistent view over time
INTER=agreement of views among individuals in minority
What is COMMITMENT and why is it important?
- suggests certainty, confidence and courage
- commitment and sacrifices
- makes majority take them more seriously
What is FLEXIBILITY and what did MUGNY (1982) suggest?
- minority group makes adjustments with their ideas to be more persuasive
- too committed seen as dogmatic
- too flexible seen as inconsistent which means less influence
What is the process of MINORITY to MAJORITY Influence?
- consistency, commitment, flexibility
- snowball effect
- social crypto amnesia
What is the role of CONSISTENCY, COMMITMENT and FLEXIBILITY in minor influence?
- make minority argument more persuasive
- commitment draws attention to minority view
- consistency and flexibility used to show truth and value of minority position
What was MOSCOVICIS aim?
- whether a consistent minority could influence a majority
- to give incorrect answer in colour perception task
What was MOSCOVICIS procedure?
- 172 females told it was colour perception task
- In groups of 6, 4 ppts 2 confederates
- shown 36 slides in varying shades of blue
- had to state colour out loud
- consistent condition said all slides were green
- inconsistent condition said 24 were green and 12 were blue
What were MOSCOVICIS findings?
- consistent condition ppt agreed on 8.2% of trials
- inconsistent condition ppt agrees on 1.25% of trials
What are MOSCOVICIS conclusions?
- consistent condition was 6.95% more effective
- shows consistency is an important factor in minority influence
What is a weakness of MOSCOVICIS study? (1)
- used a bias sample of 172 females from America
- unable to generalise to other genders
- research suggests females more likely to conform
- more research need to determine effect of MI on men
- lacks population validity
What is a weakness of MOSCOVICIS study?
- deceived his ppt by telling them it was a perception test
- he did not gain fully informed consent
- although unethical to deceive ppt it was needed to achieve valid results
- if ppt aware of true aim they would have displayed demand characteristics and acted differently
What is support for FLEXIBILITY?
NEMETH (1986)
- ppt in groups of 4 decide how much compensation to give ski victim
- one ppt was confederate who suggested extremely low amount of money
- if confederate was flexible and moved money amount, ppt more likely to reduce amount
- if confederate not flexible ppt less likely to
Who provided support for CONSISTENCY?
MOSCOVICI ET AL (1969)
What is THE SNOWBALL EFFECT?
- members of majority move towards minority
- minority grows and picks up momentum so more majority members convert to minority
- minority grows into snowball so large it becomes majority
What is SOCIAL CRYPTO AMNESIA?
- society forgets the source of the message
- accepts minority views without too much disruption of social order
- minority views becomes integral part of society
