Minority Vs. Majority Influence Flashcards
What is majority influence?
Majority influence is when large groups influence a smaller sub-group or individual. Such as the conformity displayed in Asch’s studies.
What is minority influence?
Minority influence is when an individual or small group influences a larger group, for example the fight for women’s rights began as a small minority group, but later influenced the majority.
How can the minority influence the majority?
Various factors such as style of thinking, identification and behavioural style.
Explain the factor: style of thinking
Thinking about an issue and the arguments for and against allows the minority to stand a good chance of influencing the majority (Smith et al, 1996)
Explain the factor: identification
People tend to identify with people they see as similar to themselves, if a member of the majority identifies with an element of the minority they are likely to also side with the minority. For example Maass et al (1982) found that a gay minority arguing for gay rights had less influence on a straight majority than a straight minority arguing for gay rights.
Explain the factor: behavioural style
The behaviour of the minority must be consistent! Moscovici (1969) stated the most important aspect of a minorities behaviour is the consistency with which they hold their opinion. Furthermore people don’t like social conflict and try to avoid this. This means minorities can exploit the majorities dislike of conflict. A consistent minority often creates conflict that will not go away until the majority considers the minority’s position as a viable alternative.
As consistency is such a big element of minority influence much work by Moscovici et al (1969) was done. Explain this research and it’s findings.
Moscovici et al (1969) tested the effect of consistency using a colour perception task which is a variant of Asch’s (1956) research. Participants were shown 36 blue coloured slides and were asked to state aloud which colour each slide was, this task (like Asch’s) was simple and unambiguous. Unlike Asch’s study there were four real participants and two confederates. When asked the colour of the slides in one condition the confederates responded consistently with the colour green, in another they they said green inconsistently (only said green on 2/3rds of trials) and a control group consisted of 6 true participants. He found that the minority did have the power to influence the majority and are mor influential when they are consistent in their views, when inconsistent they are largely ignored.
What two methods are use to explain majority/minority influence?
The dual process model (Moscovici, 1980) states that the influence of a minority compared to a majority is a different process. However Latane and Wolf’s (1981) Social Impact theory states the process of majority and minority influence is the same.
Explain dual process…
The Dual process states that
- majority influence is due to the power of numbers and the majority have the power to reward and punish with approval and disapproval.
- Majorities induce conformity by means of a public comparison process, whereby no attention or thought is given to the issue presented.
- Majorities produce public compliance not conversion, and is considered direct, immediate and only has a temporary effect on social influence.
- Minority influence however is because the minority provides the majority with new ideas, new information which leads them to reexamine their views.
- Minorities induce conformity by means of a private validation and challenge the beliefs of the majority and produce private conversion,
- it is considered indirect, delayed and creates a private internalised effect on social influence
Majority = normative Minority = informational
Research to support the dual process theory comes from…
Moscovici and Personnaz (1980, 1986) consisted of groups of 2 - one real participant and one confederate. Pts publically called out the colour when they saw the slide (which was obvious) confederates consistently Calle the blue slides green. Due to the chromatic after image (explain this) after this they then privately wrote down the colour of the slide, which wasn’t obvious due to the after image effect. They found the minority influence produced indirect, latent cognitive change but majority influence produced direct and immediate behavioural compliance.
Support for the dual process model has come from…
Wood (1994) and Mannix and Neale (2005)
Criticisms of Moscovici and dual processing
- levelling off effect - how can this be applicable to large groups
- often used unrepresentative samples
Explain single process
Latane & Wolf (1981) argue that this theory can explain both majority and minority influence. The amount of social influence one can exert depends on their: strength (status, power, knowledge) immediacy (proximity in space and time) and number (# of group members)
Strength: if person who is convincing is an expert in their field
Immediacy: more of an impact if it comes from friends rather than strangers
Number: stronger if repeated by a lot of people who are all in agreement
Social impact theory…
Either majority or minority influence will be a multiplicative function of strength, immediacy, and number of members, as the source of influence gets larger, the impact of each source is reduced. (Lightbulb analogy)
The magnitude of influence depends on the number of individuals in agreement, because majorities contain more people they should exert greater influence, however minorities who are consistent pare attitudes greater status.
Evaluate single process
+ single process model provide parsimonious account of influence in the real world
+ evidence that the quantitative size of both minority and majority influence effects
- however it cannot explain the qualitative nature of majority and minority influence effects
