The Complete Companions for AQA A Level Psychology 5th Edition
Outline and evaluate research into minority influence. This is essentially a full 16-mark question which is all you need for the exam, you can also use it to answer all 4,6,8, 12 mark questions in the exam all you have to do is break it down.
Outline and evaluate research into minority influence. (16 marks)
Minority influence is form of social influence in which a minority of people rejects the
established norm of the majority of group members and influence the beliefs and
behaviours of the majority. Minority influence is also most likely to lead to internalisation as
both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed. The three processes are consistency,
commitment and flexibility.
Consistency is when the minority keep the same belief overtime and between all the
individuals in the minority. Then overtime the consistency in the minority view increases the
amount of interest from other people and rethink their own views. Synchronic consistency-
people in minority saying same thing. Diachronic consistency- they have been saying the
same thing for some time. Commitment help gain attention from majority as sometimes
minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their cause. It important
that these activities do pose some risk to minority as it shows commitment to cause.
Flexibility, Nemeth argued that being consistent and repeating same arguments and
behaviour is seen rigid, off putting to majority. Instead minority should adapt their point of
views and accept reasonable counter arguments. All 3 factors make people think about the
topic and overtime people become converted switch from minority to majority, more
happens faster rate of conversion- snowball effect.
Moscovici et al got group of 6 people view 36 blue green slides and asked to state colour of
each slide aloud. Study had 3 conditions, 1 Confederates consistently said lines were green,
2 confederates were inconsistent about colour of slides 3 control group no confederates.
They found that only 0.25% of control group wrongly identified colour. In inconsistent
minority condition agreement fell to 1.25%. In the consistent minority condition, ppts gave
the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials 32% gave same answer on at least 1 trial. Show
minority influence majority indicate influence more effective when minority are consistent
A strength there is research evidence shows a change to minority position involves deeper
thought. Martin et al (2003) gave ppts a message supporting a particular viewpoint and
measured their support. One group of ppts then heard a minority group endorsing the same
view. Another group of ppts heard a majority group endorsing the initial viewpoint. Ppts
were then exposed to a conflicting view and their support was measured again. They found
that people were less willing to change their opinions to the new conflicting view if they had
listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group. Thus, this suggests
that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring
effect.
Further research demonstrates the impact of minority influence. For example, an adaptation
of Moscovici’s research was completed where participants were exposed to minority
influence but were able to give answers privately. They found even higher levels of
agreement with the minority that in the original research. Thus, this is a strength because
the research demonstrates that the minority can be a powerful influence on the attitudes
and behaviours of others, but more specifically that consistency is the key to successful
minority influence.
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