Minority Influence

Minority influence is a form of social influence where a persuasive minority changes the attitudes and behaviours of the majority (larger group of people). Minority influence is also likely to lead to a form of internalisation. This means that both public behaviour (behaviour shown to others) and private beliefs are changed by the process. 

Minority influence has got NOTHING to do with conformity. Please don’t ever use the word conformity when describing or discussing minority influence. Minority influence is distinct from conformity. Conformity is all about how a group of people influence others behaviour. Minority influence is about about one person, or how a small group of people (that is smaller than the majority group) can influence others behaviour. 

For a change in ideas, religions, politics etc. there are times when a minority of people with different views have to exert their influence on the rest of us. This so called minority influence tends to be a slow process, but it does bring about a change both in public and privately held opinions (internalisation). This is relatively straight forward if the minority has a good power base, but very often they start from a position of weakness, so how do they manage to exert influence?

Real life examples of minority influence:

The suffragette movement changing attitudes towards women’s rights. The suffragettes were women who campaigned for the right to vote through controversial and sometimes violent protests. “Suffrage” means the right to vote and “universal suffrage” was the campaign to give everyone equal power at the ballot box.

Nelson Mandela worked to free his country from racial division.  Nelson Mandela led civil rights movements which helped bring about social change.

Rosa Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Led by a young Martin Luther King Jr, the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Over the next half-century, Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end entrenched racial segregation.

Main processes in Minority Influence:

Consistency: 

• Over time the consistency of a minorities view increases the amount of interest from other people. This consistency might be an agreement between people in the minority group (synchronic consistency – they are all saying them same thing), and/or consistency over time (diachronic consistency – they have been saying the same thing for quite some time now). Such consistency, makes other people start to rethink their own views ‘Maybe they have a point if they are think that way’ OR ‘Maybe they have a point if they keep saying it’

Commitment:

• Sometimes minorities will engage in serious activities to draw attention to their views. These activities must have some level of risk, as this demonstrates their commitment to the cause. This then leads the majority group members to pay even more attention ‘Wow, she must really believe in what’s she’s saying, perhaps I should consider her view’. This is called the augmentation principle. 

Flexibility:

• Nemeth argued that consistency can actually have a negative impact as it could be portrayed as being too rigid and reluctant to consider others views. This can be off-putting to the majority and could lead to them ignoring the minorities view all together! In order to have a more receptive reaction from the majority, it is important for the minority to show that they can adapt and consider others views. It is really important to try and create a nice balance of consistency and flexibility, too much of either, could lead to the minority group losing support from the majority group.

The process of change:

• Hearing something which agrees with your argument is unlikely to make you stop and think, but when you hear something new, particularly if it is from someone who is passionate and consistently portrays a different view, you are far more likely to take an interest. Over time, more people from the majority group, switch the minority group, this is known as converting. The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion becomes and this is called the snowball effect. Gradually the minority view, becomes the majority!

Moscovici et al (1969): ‘calling a blue slide green’ – A study to support the CONSISTENCY phase of minority influence 

I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to remember this study, ‘minority influence’ is a likely question and this is one of the only studies to use (or Nemeth’s study on flexibility- which is below)

Moscovici believed that if majority influence (conformity) was all powerful, we would think and behave the same. He stated that major social movements, like Christianity, start with an individual or small group and that without such influence, there would be no change in the society we live in. He decided to investigate this claim through the following research procedure.

Aim: To see if a consistent minority can influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception task.

Method: 172 female American participants were told they were taking part in an experiment on colour perception. Six participants at a time were asked to estimate the colour, out loud, of 36 slides (which were all different shades of blue). Two of the six participants were confederates. There were two conditions: 1) Consistent: the two confederates called the slides green on all the trials; 2) Inconsistent: the two confederates called the slides green 24 times, and blue 12 times.

Results: Participants in the consistent condition were influenced by the minority as they called the slides green on 8.4% of the trials. Participants in the inconsistent condition only called the slides green in  1.3% of the trials.

These figures aren’t very high, however, 32% of participants conformed with the minority on at least one occasion. Remember also that the slides are quite clearly blue and NOT green.

Conclusion: From this Moscovici concluded that consistency is vital for minority influence to occur. If the minority consistently give the same answer they are more likely to sway a majority.

Memory Strategy Alert! I always forget which was the original colour and which was the minority influence colour. So, I remember blue is a primary colour and therefore it’s the original colour on the slides! Blue on the slides, green was the colour they were trying to convince them it was. You can’t have green without the blue. 

Variations on the procedure
If participants were allowed to write down their answers (private response) as opposed to the usual verbal (public response) you may be surprised to find that conforming to a minority actually increased… bet you thought it would go the other way!

To reiterate… when participants were shown a slide that is clearly blue, but a few stooges claim its green, then real participants are more likely to secretly agree with them than do so openly!

Moscovici concluded that the reason more people (more than the 8%) didn’t conform in the original study, was because they didn’t want to be seen going along with a minority view. Internally, it seems they were being convinced!

Nemeth et al (1974)

Aim: To investigate whether a flexible minority could influence a majority to give less compensation to a victim of a ski-lift accident.

Method: Participants were placed in groups of four and had to agree on the amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski-lift accident. One of the participants in each group was a confederate and there were two conditions: 1) when the minority argued for a low rate of compensation and refused to change its position (inflexible); 2) when the minority argued for a low rate of compensation, but compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of compensation (flexible). 

Results: Nemeth found that in the inflexible condition, the minority had little or no effect on the majority; however, in the flexible condition, the majority was much more likely to compromise and change their view.

Evaluation of Moscovici Research  

Strengths:

• Internal Validity: The artificial setting and task (calling a blue slide green) meant that they could be certain the participants knew the correct answer was blue, hence they could be certain whether minority influence has happened or not. If asked on a more realistic task, such as religion, union strikes or smoking (to name a few) there could be multiple other factors which contribute towards a participants change in opinion or actions. By designing a task with minimal consequences and a clear correct answer, Moscovici could be more certain of the influence of consistency on minority influence. 
• Ethics: of course ethical issues are a problem for research, however it could be argued that the deception and lack of informed consent here reduced the chance of demand characteristics affecting the results. 
• Applications to real life: knowledge of how minority influence can be encouraged can be used by activists, unions and governments wanting to cause positive (and sometimes negative) social change. A valuable study if used to cause positive change within society. Would be useful to give and example here as evidence. Perhaps focus on the use of consistency by unions this year during strikes to gain some of the change that was being asked for. 

Weaknesses:

• Generalisability: Moscovici used a bias sample of 172 female participants from America. As a result, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, for example male participants, and we cannot conclude that male participants would respond to minority influence in the same way. Furthermore, research often suggests that females are more likely to conform and therefore further research is required to determine the effect of minority influence on male participants.
• Ecological validity: Moscovici used a very trivial exercise, i.e. a silly disagreement over a slide that is very obviously blue. This is not the sort of thing we normally disagree over, so does it tell us anything about minority influence in real life when very weighty matters of principle tend to be involved
• Ethics: Moscovici has also been criticised for deceiving his participants, as participants were told that they were taking part in a colour perception test. This also means that Moscovici did not gain fully informed consent. Although it is seen as unethical to deceive participants, Moscovici’s experiment required deception in order to achieve valid results. If the participants were aware of the true aim, they might have displayed demand characteristics and acted differently.

Evaluation of Minority Influence as an explanation/theory 

Strengths:

• Research to support: Moscovici and Nemeth’s Research, which gives scienfitic credibility to the importance of Consistency, Commitment and Flexibility when minority influence has an effect. We can be more confident that within these controlled environments, these factors determine the extent of the influence a minority can have.
• Applications to real life: Can be applied to a jury decision making. Nemeth & Wachtler carried out a mock trial with some students and a confederate (acting as the minority influence). They then deliberate on the case in relation to compensation for an accident. During the discussion, the confederate adopts a decision that disagrees with the majority. When the minority is more confident and assertive, they are more able to influence the amount of compensation in comparison to being less confident and assertive.
   

Weaknesses:

• Alternative explanations: Atkinson et al (1990) – Students were asked to read out summaries of a discussion on gay rights supposedly written by other students like themselves. Four of the summaries focused on one viewpoint. One of the summaries focused on the other viewpoint. When asked to share their views publicly all of the students tended to favour the majority view. However, when asked to write down their views privately they tended to favour the minority view. It was concluded that the majority creates conformity by the granting or withholding of social approval (compliance) but don’t necessarily create a change of opinion. On the other hand the minority have the power to create internalisation (a real shift in privately held views).

• Research to support lacks external validity: However, there are significant issues with these experiments as they lack generalisability, ecological validity and have ethical issues which question the integrity of the researchers and the application of these findings outside of the research setting. Therefore this explanation has been shown to be supported within controlled experimental conditions but cannot be empirically supported by this research within the real world potentially limiting the explanation’s credibility outside of this setting.
• Alternative explanation:

  Mass & Clark (1984) The study involved heterosexual participants. Participants were presented with arguments advocating for gay rights. These arguments were attributed to either: A heterosexual minority (ingroup) OR A homosexual minority (outgroup). After exposure to the arguments, participants were asked to evaluate their persuasiveness and indicate whether their attitudes had changed. The heterosexual (ingroup) minority was significantly more persuasive in changing participants’ attitudes toward gay rights. The homosexual (outgroup) minority was met with greater resistance and was less effective in influencing attitudes. Participants were more likely to engage in deeper processing of the ingroup’s arguments, whereas the outgroup’s arguments were often dismissed or ignored. Therefore, minority influence on it’s own can’t explain changes in attitudes as we are more likely to be swayed by people like ourselves… our in-group.