Essay
social influence- Minority influence 16 marker
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Essay of 2 pages for the course Social Influence at AQA (3 ao1 4 ao3)
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Minority influence is when a smaller group or individual is able to change the view of themajority group. The minority attempts to change views through ISI, which is likely to
result in internalisation.
Minority influence is most effective when the group maintains a consistent unchanging
stance as this shows confidence and appears unbiased. According to Hogg & Vaughan
(2002) consistency causes the majority to reassess their own viewpoints as doubt and
uncertainty creeps in. as persistence continues, despite majority opposition, social pressure
and rejection forcing the majority to take notice. When a minority group is consistent within
itself and their arguments for change they are more likely to be influential than a group that is
fragmented and changing their stance on issues as this never builds up enough support or
credibility.
Commitment also forces majority group members to take the minority more seriously as it
shows perseverance and confidence at great cost. Over time this may convert majority
group members to join the minority as their commitment to their cause is longer lasting.
Eventually as more of the majority begin to change views, the process begins to
speed up, in a process called the snowball effect
Flexibility is also a key behavioural trait for minority influence to change majority opinion. As
the minority group generally have little or no power, showing themselves to be flexible shows
the majority they are able to cooperate and be reasonable which is more persuasive than a
group that is rigid, narrow-minded and difficult to work with. In contrast a minority group
which is too flexible in their own beliefs may show themselves to be inconsistent in them so
a moderate level of flexibility is seen as important for minority influence to be effective.
Moscovici (1969) provided support for the role of consistency in minority influence through a
separate laboratory study involving 32 groups of 6 females. The groups were asked to
identify the colour presented to them which was always blue but varying shades. However
two group members who were confederates always answered incorrectly either all the time
or most of the time to measure the impact consistency would have on the majority. Results
found when the confederates were consistent in their responses and stated the slides were
green, 8% of the majority agreed also. This was also seen to be higher when the group
members were asked to write down their responses rather than state them out loud. When
confederates gave inconsistent answers varying from blue and green their influence dropped
to 1.25%. This supports consistency as an important element for social influence to occur
from minority groups.
However, a criticism in this study is that all the participants were female and results gained
from just one gender may not translate to males due to gender bias in the findings. It may be
argued that a group of men would be less likely to be persuaded due to differences in how
they are socialised compared to women. Generally research suggests women are more
conformist than men and the results for a mixed group may also be different between men
and women. Therefore this study lacks external validity to real world settings where both
genders interact daily.
However, support comes from Martin et al (2003) who gave participants a message
supporting a particular view and measured their support. One group heard a minority agree
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