What is ‘minority influence’?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
edD87WazW1A
https
://www.amnesty.org/en/who-we-are/
What factors make a pressure
group successful in changing
things? How do they convince
us to take their view?
It doesn’t have to be a group
 3 behaviours than enable a minority to
influence a majority:
• Consistency – repetition of the message, sticking to the
same arguments/reasons
• Commitment – showing that you believe in your cause
through your own behaviours i.e. always
recycling/refusing to buy products testing on animals.
You could also put a lot your own time and money into
the cause or make other sacrifices.
• Flexibility – being prepared to compromise i.e. not
everyone can car share every day to reduce pollution,
but you may get people to agree to one or two days a
week.
 Your challenge..
1. Read through the cases studies then read pages 32-33
in the Illuminate textbook
2. Highlight/underline the key features of successful
minority influence on the case studies sheet (not every
case study will have all 3 features – use a different
colour for each feature)
3. Write (full) answers to q1 and q2 at the bottom of page
33.
4. Challenge question - Do minority groups (or individuals)
use mostly informational or normative influence?
Explain your answer using an example to demonstrate
Experimental evidence for consistency:
• Moscovici et al (1969) – asked participants in small groups to
judge whether slides on a screen were blue or green. Two
confederates (a minority) were told to always say ‘green’ no
matter what colour the slide really was. They found that one
third of the participants agreed on a wrong answer with the
minority at least once. They concluded that if the message is
consistent, the minority can change the majority. What
happened next?
1. Choice – answer question 2 or 3 on p32.
2. Make notes on the procedure, findings and conclusion of this study
3. Use this study to make an evaluative point about the role of
consistency in minority influence.
 Other evaluation points:
• Artificial tasks in Moscivici’s research –
consequences of minority influence are much
more important in real life (decreases
ecological validity of the research so that the
idea that a minority needs to be consistent to
be effective may not be true in real life)
• Further supporting research – Wood et al.
 For year 2 -issues and debates grenade (bursts of brilliance)
Gender bias Moscovici only used female students, we know there are gender
differences in how we respond to social influence so this leads to a lack
of understanding of how this process works in males. An example of
beta-bias.
Reductionism-
holism
Ethnocentrism/
cultural bias
Nature-nurture
Animal studies
Determinism
Ethics and Deception was used in this study
socially sensitive
research
 How minority influence can lead to social
change
The government
/council/teachers starts
to listen to the minority
A minority group has an
People start to listen group, they become
effective campaign that
and adopt the views of convinced by their
shows commitment,
the minority. The views and evidence and
flexibility and
minority grows in size they create laws or
consistency
other big rule changes
to help the minority to
achieve their cause
Examples:
• Stopping people
smoking in cars
• Changing speed limits
near schools The snowball effect has
• Changing rules about occurred - the minority is People have now
school uniform now becoming the changed their behaviour
• An individual convinces majority – change has through obedience to
occurred through the new rules
an unanimous jury to conformity
change their verdict
 Apply it, test it
To get you thinking – complete the worksheet
‘Psychology revision on Christmas day’.

Now try the following exam questions

 A scenario to practice..
Jessie wants to see a new band on Friday night
but his friends have not heard of them and
would rather just go to the pub. Explain how
Jessie could convince them. Refer to the 3 key
behaviours of a successful minority:
1. Jessie could show consistency by…
2. Jessie could show commitment by…
3. Jessie could show flexibility by…
 Past exam question June 2010
For many years, smoking in public places such as trains,
pubs and restaurants was quite acceptable. People
could smoke wherever they wanted and non-smokers
had to put up with smoky atmospheres. However, in
2007, the Government finally introduced a law
banning smoking in public places and those who
smoke are limited in where they can smoke.
Using your knowledge of the psychology of social
change, explain how this social change has occurred.
(4 marks)
 To get top marks
• You must engage fully with the stimulus (the
topic of the smoking ban)
• You can talk about pressure groups influencing
the government and the factors that would
make this likely to be successful
• Talk about how this actually leads to a change
in behaviour
 June 2013
• A small environmental group wants to
encourage people to use public transport or
bicycles instead of using their cars.
• Using your knowledge of the role of minority
influence in social change, what advice would
you give the environmental group? (6 marks)
 How to get top marks in this question:
• Explicit engagement with the scenario i.e.
promoting use of public transport and bikes
• Practical advice that is clearly related to
research
• Written in a way that answers the question i.e.
‘the environmental group should do x
because…’
 Word splat - Consolidating our learning
To get top marks in the exam, you have to use ‘specialist
terminology effectively’ - try to explain each term, look up and
write down any that you don’t know :
Minority influence Consistency Commitment

Flexibility Internalisation Synchronic

consistency

Diachronic Snowball effect Meta-analysis

consistency

Ecological validity confederate Control group

Implications of social influence research for
the economy
Obesity leads to health problems that cost the
government billions of pounds each year. By
reducing obesity, the government could save the
NHS lots of money. How will this save money?
How could we use normative influence to
change behaviour (see p34)? Use Schultz et al
(2008) on p17 to support this
How could we use legitimate authority
(obedience)? What study would support this?