1. The role of minority influence in social change.
How should the minority behave if they want to influence the majority?
How does the minority become the majority and what happens then?

2. How does social influence research help us understand the processes involved in social change?
Social change is when a society adopts a new belief or way of believing that then becomes widely accepted as the norm.
Saudi Arabia and women being able to drive.

3. Can you think of any other examples?

4. Minority Influence
So far we have seen how a powerful majority can influence a minority….but what about the other way around?
Research has shown that minorities can be influential provided they adopt the appropriate style of behaviour.
If people simply went along with the majority all the time and minority views never prevailed, there would be no change, no innovation

5. Minority influence
Which minority figures can you think of who instigated social change?

6. Who is this?
Nelson Mandela

7. Who is this?
Rosa Parks

8. Who is this?
Suffragettes

9. Who is this?
Martin Luther King

10. Minority influence in social change
It takes more than one or two people to bring about a real change in society.
For change to happen, the minority somehow has to bring the majority around to their way of thinking.
The behavioural characteristics that the minority must possess in order to influence the majority have been investigated by studies of minority influence.

11. Minority Influence
Small minority groups may be dismissed initially however under some circumstance and over a period of time these small groups or even individuals can eventually become very influential

12. Moscovici et al (1969) – Aim
To see whether a consistent minority of participants could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception test.

13. Procedure 172 participants. No colour blindness.
Six participants at a time were asked to estimate the colour of 36 slides.
All the slides were blue, but of differing brightness.
Two of the six participants were accomplices of the experimenter.

14. Procedure Two conditions:
Consistent: the two accomplices called the slides green on all the trials
Inconsistent: the two accomplices called the slides green 24 times, and blue 12 times

15. Findings
Participants in the consistent condition yielded and called the slides green in 8.4% of the trials
32% of participants in the consistent condition reported a green slide at least once
Participants in the inconsistent condition yielded and called the slides green in only 1.3% of the trials

16. Conclusion
Minorities can influence a majority in certain circumstances
Consistency was found to be the most important factor
Flexibility
Commitment
Relevance – time for change
Informational social influence
Internalisation (conversion)

17. Behavioural styles of influential minorities:
Moscovici (1985) identified behavioural styles which minorities must possess if they are to exert social influence on majorities:
Consistency - must be consistent in their opposition to the majority. Consistency is recognized as ‘resolution, certainty, clarity of definition and coherence’
Not dogmatic – they must not appear dogmatic by rigidly reiterating the same arguments. They need to demonstrate a degree of flexibility

18. Behavioural styles of influential minorities:
Hogg and Vaughan claim they will be more influential if:
Acting from principle (not out of self-interest)
Have made sacrifices in order to maintain their position
Similar to the majority in terms of class, age and gender
Advocate views that are consistent with current social trends

19. Why do people yield to a minority?
Consistency – two types
Intra-individual – where a person maintains a consistent position over time
Inter-individual – where there is agreement among members of the minority group
Snowball effect – once a few members of a majority start to move towards the minority position, then the influence of the minority begins to gather momentum more people gradually pay attention to the potential correctness of the minority view

20. Clark (1994) “Twelve angry men experiment”
270 college students were asked to role play the part of jurors and read a summary of a court case presented in the film Twelve Angry Men. The students who were all unfamiliar with the film had to decide whether the accused was guilty.
 Participants were given a summary of a murder case and the jury’s decision about key pieces of evidence.
The persuasiveness of the arguments and the views of the jury were manipulated.

21. Clark (1994) “Twelve angry men experiment”
The participants were asked their views about the guilt of the defendant at various stages.
Clark found that participants were most persuaded when they heard consistent persuasive arguments from the minority jury members and when they learned that more than one juror had defected from the majority position.

22. Behavioural characteristics of the minority
As you can see, research shows that consistency is the most important behavioural characteristic that the minority should possess in order to influence the majority. Moscovici also suggested it is important for the minority to show commitment and flexibility.

23. Minority influence is when the members of a majority group change their beliefs/behaviours based on their exposure to a persuasive minority. There are steps needed for this to happen.
Consistency
The minority must be consistent in their opinion
Either through synchronic – all saying the same thing or
Diachronic- they’ve been saying the same thing for some time.
Commitment
A committed minority will lead people to rethink their
Position. Sometime using extreme methods.
This is called the augmentation principle.
Nemeth (1986) that being too rigid in their thinking won’t be viewed well
Rather being open to acceptable counter arguments. Needs a balance between consistency / flexibility.

24. Evaluation
Consistency is supported by Wood (1994) who conducted a meta- analysis of 97 studies of minority influence and found that the minority group who were perceived as being consistent held greater sway with groups.
The issue with flexibility is if the group is too flexible it could be seen as weak and lose respect however if there is no flexibility then they could be viewed as dogmatic.

25. Group work In your groups chose a minority figure:
You need to look at the case study and link it to research you have looked at in social influence.
How does previous research explain how these individuals influenced the majority?
NB Remember when you present your findings you need to provide background on the case study to the rest of the class.