Minority Influence
MINORITY INFLEUNCE
AO1
- It's when the minority persuade others to adopt their beliefs and attitudes
and/or behaviours
- Most likely leads to INTERNALISATION -> person permanently conforms
publicly and privately
- There are 3 key factors that are needed to create minority influence:
o CONSISTENCY -> say the same message over and over -> this will
make it more likely to draw majority’s attention to issue/belief and
make them rethink their own views
o COMMITMENT -> minority must show dedication to their position, e.g.
making personal sacrifices, showing that they are not acting out of self-
interest (augmentation principle) -> shows greater commitment to
cause
o FLEXIBLE -> be flexible in their approach and must be willing to
compromise, by minority adapting their ideas to get more support from
majority -> this means the majority are more likely to take the group
seriously and not dismiss them
- If the minority group uses these factors, more and more people will have
their minds changed and will persuade more and more of their friends and
family to do the same. This is known as the SNOWBALL EFFECT, and results
in the minority view becoming the majority view
AO3
- P - Research to support consistency
o E – Moscovici (1969) conducted a study where participants judged
colours of slides. They were in groups of six, and 2 were confederates.
In one condition, the confederates consistently said the slides were
green (when they were different hues of blue) on two-thirds of trials.
The real participants agreed with the minority 8.42% of the time (32%
of participants agreed at least once). When the minority inconsistently
gave the wrong answer, the participants agreed with them only 1.25%
of the time
o C – this supports that consistency is an important factor in minority
influence
o D – this was gender bias and culturally bias as he used female
participants from America. Therefore, we are unable to generalise the
results to other populations and other people, such as male
participants; we cannot conclude that they would respond to minority
influence in the same way
- P – most of the research used to explain minority influence lacks external
validity
o E – it involves unrealistic tasks in artificial scenarios (held in labs), e.g.
Moscovici, therefore they do not tell us about real-life minority
influence
MINORITY INFLEUNCE
AO1
- It's when the minority persuade others to adopt their beliefs and attitudes
and/or behaviours
- Most likely leads to INTERNALISATION -> person permanently conforms
publicly and privately
- There are 3 key factors that are needed to create minority influence:
o CONSISTENCY -> say the same message over and over -> this will
make it more likely to draw majority’s attention to issue/belief and
make them rethink their own views
o COMMITMENT -> minority must show dedication to their position, e.g.
making personal sacrifices, showing that they are not acting out of self-
interest (augmentation principle) -> shows greater commitment to
cause
o FLEXIBLE -> be flexible in their approach and must be willing to
compromise, by minority adapting their ideas to get more support from
majority -> this means the majority are more likely to take the group
seriously and not dismiss them
- If the minority group uses these factors, more and more people will have
their minds changed and will persuade more and more of their friends and
family to do the same. This is known as the SNOWBALL EFFECT, and results
in the minority view becoming the majority view
AO3
- P - Research to support consistency
o E – Moscovici (1969) conducted a study where participants judged
colours of slides. They were in groups of six, and 2 were confederates.
In one condition, the confederates consistently said the slides were
green (when they were different hues of blue) on two-thirds of trials.
The real participants agreed with the minority 8.42% of the time (32%
of participants agreed at least once). When the minority inconsistently
gave the wrong answer, the participants agreed with them only 1.25%
of the time
o C – this supports that consistency is an important factor in minority
influence
o D – this was gender bias and culturally bias as he used female
participants from America. Therefore, we are unable to generalise the
results to other populations and other people, such as male
participants; we cannot conclude that they would respond to minority
influence in the same way
- P – most of the research used to explain minority influence lacks external
validity
o E – it involves unrealistic tasks in artificial scenarios (held in labs), e.g.
Moscovici, therefore they do not tell us about real-life minority
influence
