1. The document discusses minority influence and the role of consistency, commitment, and flexibility according to research by Moscovici and others. 2. Moscovici found in his blue/green slide study that a consistent minority were able to influence the majority to give incorrect answers. Later research by Clark also showed consistency was important for minority influence. 3. Commitment, where the minority appear principled and have made sacrifices for their views, also amplifies minority influence according to Hogg and Vaughan. 4. Flexibility in adapting arguments, as shown by Nemeth's jury study, allows the minority to be more persuasive through small concessions rather than rigid consistency alone.

1. Minority influence
Specificaton:
Minority influence including reference to
consistency. Commitment and flexibility

2. Minority influence
Serge Moscovici

3. Minority influence
• Hitler and the Nazi party were a minority that
influenced the majority of Germans to change
their attitudes, beliefs and behaviour.

4. Minority influence
Moscovici thought that
social psychologists had
failed to recognise that a
minority could influence
the majority to produce
social change.

5. Minority influence
Minority social influence
is a form of social
influence where a
persuasive minority exerts
pressure to change the
attitudes, beliefs, or
behaviours of the
majority.

6. Minority influence: Moscovici’s
blue/green slide study (1969)
• To find out how a minority can influence a majority to
change their beliefs Moscovici designed a repeated
measures lab experiment based on Asch’s line experiments.
• Instead of lines he used 36 blue slides.

7. Moscovici’s blue/green slide study
(1969)
Aim:
To see whether a consistent minority of participants
could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in
a colour perception task.
Procedure:
172 participants were involved. All had good eyesight.
Six participants at a time were asked to estimate the
colour of 36 slides.
All the slides were blue, but of differing brightness.

8. Moscovici’s blue/green slide study
(1969)
Procedure:
•Two of the six participants were confederates
of the experimenter.
•There were two conditions:
-Consistent: the two confederates called all 36
slides green .
-Inconsistent: the two confederates called the
slides green 24 times and blue 12 times.

9. Blue/green slide study (1969)
Read p.40 of the social influence booklet.
1. What did Moscovici find?
2. What did Moscovici conclude?
3. Were the findings caused by normative social influence
or informational social influence?
4. Why did Moscovici test the eyesight of the participants?
5. State one limitation of a repeated measures design.
6. State one strength of a repeated measures design.

10. Minority influence: consistency
Moscovici concluded that
a minority had to be
consistent in their
opposition to the majority
if they were to influence
the majority and produce
social change.

11. Minority influence: consistency

12. Minority influence: consistency
• Moscovici also concluded that minorities use
informational social influence to persuade those in
the majority to change their views.
• He argued that minorities are aiming for conversion
rather than compliance. They hope by focussing on
the issue, the majority will come to examine the
arguments proposed by the minority. In turn this may
start the process of conversion.

13. Evaluation: consistency
•Moscovici’s blue/green slide study was a lab
experiment.
•The artificiality of the lab setting and task is unlike
real-life situations where minorities such as pressure
groups exert their influence on the prevailing
majority opinion.
•However, later research has backed up Moscovici’s
conclusion that consistency is important in helping a
minority to influence a majority to change it’s
viewpoint.

14. Evaluation: consistency
Twelve Angry Men study (1994)

16. Evaluation: consistency
Twelve Angry Men study (1994)
• Clark conducted a more realistic study to find out if
consistency was important in helping a minority to
influence a majority and change its viewpoint.
• 270 college students were asked to role play the
part of jurors and read a summary of a court case
presented in the film 12 Twelve Angry Men.
• The students had to decide whether or not the
accused was guilty.

17. Evaluation: consistency
Twelve Angry Men study (1994)
• Clark found that participants were most persuaded
when they heard consistent persuasive arguments
from the minority jury members and when they
learned more than one juror had defected from
the majority position.
• Clark concluded it was convincing consistent
arguments that resulted in the minority exerting
the greatest influence.

18. Minority influence: commitment

19. Minority influence: commitment

20. Minority influence: commitment

21. Minority influence: commitment
• Hogg and Vaughan (1998) have argued that minorities are
more likely to be influential if they:
• Appear to be acting from principle (not out of self-
interest).
• Are seen to have made sacrifices in order to maintain their
position.
• This demonstrates the commitment of the minority to their
cause.
• Commitment amplifies the effect of the minority on the
majority – this is called the augmentation principle.

22. Minority influence: flexibility
• Nemeth (1986) reviewed Moscovici’s
research and concluded that it was not just
consistency that made a minority
influential.
• The minority needed to be flexible and
adapt their arguments to the majority
position to be persuasive.

23. Flexibility: evaluation
•Nemeth (1986) conducted research to test the
hypothesis that a minority had to be flexible in the
presentation of their arguments if they were to be
persuasive.
•Nemeth designed a study that used a mock jury to
pass judgement on a compensation case.

24. Flexibility: evaluation
•Four participants took
part.
•One of the participants
was a confederate.
•The confederate made a
very low offer of
compensation to an
accident victim.

25. Flexibility: evaluation
•The three true participants made a much higher
offer of compensation.
•When the confederate made a small increase in
their offer the majority shifted their position and
lowered the amount they offered in compensation to
the accident victim.
•Nemeth concluded that flexibility is important in
making a minority influential.

26. Flexibility: evaluation
•Nemeth (1986) backs up flexibility as an important
variable in making a minority more persuasive in
changing the beliefs and attitudes of a majority.
•One way to get AO3 marks is to use the findings of
research as evidence to back up or challenge a
theory, explanation, or the role of a variable in
changing the way people think, feel and behave.

27. 3. Flexibility