1.9 Minority Influence

1.9 Minority Influence

1. Occurs when a minority/small group of people have the ability to influence others to adopt their beliefs and behaviours. This leads to internalisation or conversion. Private beliefs, like public, are changed.

2. 3 processes

   • Consistency
     • Minority must be consistent
       • Synchronic consistency
         • All saying the same thing
       • Diachronic consistency
         • Have been saying the same thing for some time now
     • A consistent minority makes other people rethink their own views
   • Commitment
     • Augmentation principle
       • Minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention and present risk to highlight commitment.
   • Flexibility
     • Charles Nemeth (1986)
       • Consistency can be off-putting. May be seen as rigid, dogmatic and unbending.
         • Instead minorities should adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter-argument. To balance flexibility.

3. Process of change

   • Hearing something you agree with doesnt make you stop and think, it is something new that will make you think deeply.
   • Snowball effect
     • Deeper processing leads to the process of conversion, overtime rate of conversion increases and "gathers more snow"

4. Evaluation

   • Strengths
     • Research support for consistency
       • Moscovici et al
         • Blue/green slide study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people.
       • Wendy Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of 100 similar studies and found that consistent minorities were most influential
     • Research support for deeper processing
       • Martin et al (2003) presented a message supporting a viewpoint and measured the participants agreement. 1 group then heard a minority agree with the initial view and another heard a majority.
         • Participants were exposed to a conflicting view then measured their views and attitudes. Less willing to change their view if they had heard a minority influence.
           • Minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.
   • Weaknesses
     • Artificial tasks
       • Research is removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life. Jury decision making and political campaigning has vastly more important outcomes.
         • Findings of minority influence studies lack external validity so are limited in telling us how the world works.
     • Real world is more complicated
       • Majorities in the real world are more powerful and hold a lot more status.