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| Question | Answer |
| Social change: including minority influence | SOCIAL CHANGE: 'when society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm' social change occurs when a minority view challenges the majority view and is eventually accepted as the majority. An example: of social change is attitudes towards homosexuality. -although it was an imprisonable offence in the UK until 1967, public attitudes have changed over time and most people now regard being gay as a normal variation of human behaviour. -eventually new laws have been created to protect the rights of gay people, and in 2005 same sex civil partnerships were introduced. -this represents a huge change in society in a relatively short period of just 50 years. |
| Real life examples of the role of minority influence in social change | 1. Martin Luther King- when rosa parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus, -Luther king then led a boycott on buses in that town for over a year. -in 1957, 9 black students were able to integrate with white students at a high school in Little Rock. Luther king continued to campaign for civil rights, which eventually led to equality between black and white citizens in America. Now America have their 1st black president; Barack Obama 2. the suffragettes; Emeline Pankhusrt- jumped under a horse -they campaigned for women's rights to vote, putting forward a persuasive message. -they carried out protests and were often arrested. -in 1928 women over the age of 21 could vote and in 1970 the Equal Pay Act was introduced. -Charles Darwin- ideas on evolution were in stark contrast to the majority view at the time that man was created by God. -his ideas were widely unaccepted at the time in 1859, however now the majority of people believe in the theory of evolution. |
| How social change happens | consider; 1. How should the minority behave if they want to influence the majority 2. How does the minority become the majority and what happen then -it takes more than just 1 or 2 people to bring about real change in society. -For change to happen, the minority somehow has to bring the majority around to their way of thinking. -the behavioural characteristics that the minority must process in order to influence the majority have been investigated by studies of minority influence. |
| Minority influence | Social influence is not only the product of majority influence, as history is littered with examples of social changes that have begun with the influence of a deviant minority. 'Minority influence, a form of social influence, takes place when a member of minority group, like an individual, influences a majority to accept the minority's beliefs or behaviour' -Minority influence is a form of social influence where the majority group members reject the established group norms and gradually move toward the position being championed by the minority. |
| A key study demonstrating minority influence: Moscovici (1969) 'calling a blue side green' | AIM: to demonstrate whether a minority can influence a majority of naive Pps, and therefore reverse the usual direction of social influence. -Moscovici et al. aimed to determine the conditions necessary for this to occur, in particular, the necessity for the minority to be consistent in their opinions. PROCEDURE: the Pps were pre-tested to check for colour blindness. -all Pps were female because he thought they would be more interested in colour. -they tested 32 groups of 6 women in each. -in each group, 2 of them were confederates and 4 were real Pps -the group was shown 36 (blue) coloured slides, all of which were BLUE but which varied in brightness due to different filters. -Pps were told that the exp was about perception and that they would be asked to verbally decide the colour they saw. -a lab exp was carried out, in which Pps were randomly allocated to either CONSISTENT, INCONSISTENT or CONTROL CONDITION. -In the CONSISTENT condition: the 2 confederates (the minority), consistently reported that the slides were green -in the INCONSISTENT condition of this exp the confederates (the minority), answered 'green' 24 times and 'blue' 12 times, i.e. they answered inconsistently. - CONTROL condition: with no confederates, i.e. 6 real Pps in each group, so that Pps were free to answer without influence. -minority influence was measured by the % of naive Pps who yielded to the confederates by calling the blue slide green. |
| Findings of Moscovici study | -in the CONSISTENT condition: 8.42% of the Pps agreed that the slides were coloured GREEN and 32% gave the same answer as the minority at least once. -in the INCONSISTENT condition: when the confederates were inconsistent, agreement with the minority was reduced to just 1.25%. -thus, the consistent condition showed the greatest yielding to minority influence. -in an interesting variation to this exp, Pps were allowed to write down their responses (private) rather than saying them aloud (public). -in this condition there was more agreement with the confederates, suggesting that at least part of the inhibition of minority influence is people's reluctance to be seen as aligning themselves with a deviant minority in public. |
| Conclusion to Moscovici's study | -the minority can have influence over the majority, and this minority influence is more effective when the minority is consistent. -the fact that minorities are more persuasive when they are consistent has implications for people in leadership's positions who are hoping to influence the majority. -if a minority is consistent with their answers then they can persuade a majority. |
| Nameth et al (1974) - flexibility | AIM: to investigate what factors other than consistency impact on minority influence. METHOD:a variation of Moscovici's study was carried out. -there were 3 conditions: 1. the stooges randomly answer 'green' on half of the trials and 'blue-green' on the other half. 2. the stooges answer 'green' to the brighter slides and 'green blue' to the darker slides. 3. the stooges answer 'green' on every trial. RESULTS: the majority were most influenced by condition 2 (21%) -there was little minority influence in conditions 1 and 3. CONCLUSIONS: a minority needs to be both consistent, but also flexible (as in condition 2) in order to have an influence on the minority. -if they are not consistent (condition 1) or show a total lack of flexibility (condition 3) then a minority influence is less likely. |
| 3 strategies used by minority groups to bring about social change | 1. consistency 2. flexibility 3. commitment |
| The role of minorities in bringing about social change- 2 ways | 1. Socio crypto amnesia 2. the snowball effect |
| How the minority bring about social change | -research has demonstrated that these factors are required for the minority to bring about social change. |
| How the minority bring about social change | consistency- the minority need to be consistent in its views and hold the same beliefs over time. -however it is important they do show some flexibility in their ideas (and be non-dogmatic). -this shows that the minority is committed to its position and makes it harder for the majority to ignore the minority. e.g. Charles Darwin disagreed with the majority view that humans were created by God. -despite his views being unpopular at first, he was consistent with his idea that humans evolved and were not created. -the suffragettes were also consistent in their arguments for women's right to vote and were consistent for 25 years before changes were made. |
| How does the minority bring about social change- extra | - current- ideas of the minority need to be current with the social trends. -recycling -if their ideas are perceived as being socially deviant then they will not influence the majority. -evidence- if the minority as evidence to back up their ideas, then they are more likely to influence the majority and bring about change. |
| How does the minority become the majority and what happens then? The Snowball Effect | Snowball effect: as the ideas of the minority begin to take effect, members of the majority slowly move towards the minority. -the minority gradually grows in size and picks up momentum more and more until it becomes so large it is the majority. e.g. some people did agree with Darwin when he originally published his work. -overtime as we were able to carry out further research to support Darwin's ideas more and more people began to agree with him. -thus provoking more interest in his theory ad getting more people to take notice, think about his ideas and eventually agree with them. |
| How does the minority become the majority and what happens then? Socio Crypto Amnesia | -when social change has occurred in society and the attitude has become an integral part of the society's culture, the source of the minority influence is often forgotten. -e.g. very few women think of suffragettes when they are voting. -smoking ban |
| Evaluation- STRENGTHS | -methodology used in Moscovici's study. -a lab exp was used which means that high levels of control are able to be kept. -the controls in Moscovici's were the group dynamics and using the confederates but not in the control group. -this means that we can be more confident that the cause and effect can be established and the results are due to the change in the IV (the conditions). -therefore increasing internal validity for support that a consistent minority can influence social change. |
| Evaluation- STRENGTHS | -research evidence to support the impact of the minority -Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta analysis of over 100 studies and found that although less influential than the majority, the minority are still persuasive when cmpared to 'control' conditions, thus supporting Moscovici's findings. -therefore this provides reliability and shows that the results are consistent. -this reinforces that the minority can bring about social change. |
| Evaluation- WEAKNESS | -a weakness of the idea that the minority can bring about change, is that even when consistent, confident and persuasive.... -the minority do not always make and impact -e.g. 1988- Tony Benn (representing the minority left wing labour party) challenged Neil Kinnock (the then leader) for leadership of the labour party. -Benn used 'classic' Moscovici influence strategies. -However, majority members showed no movement onto Benn's side. -this is a weakness because it shows that the minority cannot always bring about social change, and sometimes the majority will hold their view point. |
| Evaluation- WEAKNESS | -there are theories which disagree with the impact a minority can make. -Turner (1991) suggests people generally more towards members of their ingroup (those who are similar to them) and move away from members of their outgroup. -therefore, as well as being consistent and persuasive, we also have to feel we share some kind of membership with the minority in order for them to make an impact. -this is a weakness because it suggests there are even fewer opportunities for the minority to bring about social change. |
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