Social Influence – Minority Influence
Social Influence – Minority Influence
MINORITY INFLUENCE
Minority Influence – a type of social influence that motivates individuals to reject the establishment of majority groups by a small group of people influencing the beliefs and behaviours of others
Minority influence involves consistency, commitment, and flexibility for a social change to occur
| Consistency | Style of thinking | Flexibility | Identification |
| – the minority must be consistent in their opinion and confident in accuracy of their ideas / views they are presenting
– they must also appear to be unbiased and should resist any social pressure – Moscovici (1969) argued that the most important behavioural style is consistency – Diachronic Consistency: consistency over time – Synchronic Consistency: consistency between its members where all agree and defend each other |
– research suggests that if a minority can get a majority to think about the scenario thoroughly, they stand a good chance in influencing the majority (Smith et al 1996)
– if the minority can get the majority to discuss the arguments proposed by the minority, the influence is likely to be stronger (Nemeth 1995) |
– in order for a minority group to bring social change, they must appear flexible and be able to compromise
– Nemeth (1986) – experiment based on a mock jury where there were groups of 3 participants and one confederate. They had to decide on how much compensation to pay a victim of a ski lift accident. When confederate was a consistent minority arguing for a low amount, he had no effect. However, when he moved to the majority side, the majority group lowered their amount slightly |
– people often identify with people they view as similar to them
– research suggests that if the majority identifies with the minority, they are more likely to take on board the views of the minority – Maas et al (1982) – this study showed that a gay minority arguing for gay rights had less influence on a straight majority, in comparison to a straight minority arguing for gay rights |
Case Study: Moscovici et al (1969) Blue-Green Study
Aim: – to investigate the role of consistent minority upon the opinions of a majority in an unambiguous situation – a colour perception test
Method: – he used 172 women participants
– there were two confederates placed together with four genuine participants
– they were then shown 36 slides which had clear distinct shades of blue and were asked
to state the colour of each slide aloud
– the two confederates answered ‘green’ for each of the 36 slides during the first part of
the experiment
– the confederates then answered ‘green’ 24 times and ‘blue’ 16 times for the second part
of the experiment
Results: – in condition one, the consistent minority had an affect on the majority by 8.42%
compared to 1.25% from the inconsistent minority
– 32% of all participants said the slide was green at least once
Conclusion: – minorities can influence majorities but only when they portray certain behaviours (for
e.g consistency)
Evaluation: – lab experiments – lacks mundane realism and ecological validity
– study used only female participants – lacks generalisability to a wider population as
you cannot assume males and the rest of the population will behave in the same
manner
– applicable – the results are valid and supports the theories made. However, you
wouldn’t use this data in everyday life
– unethical – participants were deceived