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Minority Influence

Minority Influence. September 21, 2006. Social Influence Equated with Conformity. By the late 1960’s research on social influence was focused completely on conformity. Focus on conformity is evident in the course readings up to this point. Social Norms, Group Polarization, Majority Pressure.

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Minority Influence

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  1. Minority Influence September 21, 2006

  2. Social Influence Equated with Conformity • By the late 1960’s research on social influence was focused completely on conformity. • Focus on conformity is evident in the course readings up to this point. • Social Norms, Group Polarization, Majority Pressure.

  3. Myopia of Majority Influence • Moscovici faced with a field that was completely focused on conformity. • Influence flowed from the majority to the minority and not the other way. • Can you think of counter-examples? • Groups become more and more similar over time. • How and why do groups change? • Peoples’ primary motivation is to be liked and accepted and their greatest fear is to be different and alienated. • Is this true of all people all of the time? What are the exceptions?

  4. Minority Influence?

  5. Toward A New Set of Questions “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” Mark Twain • Can the minority influence the majority and if so, how? • When are minorities the most/least persuasive? • What are the consequences of minority influence?

  6. Reversing the Asch Experiment • Six naïve subjects constituted the majority. • One confederate was the minority. • Subjects were asked to view a set of slides and state their color. All slides were actually blue but varied in intensity. • Minority consistently said that the blue slides were green.

  7. Results: Minority Influence • Control condition not exposed to the minority only said green twice—less than 1% of the responses. • Among those exposed to minority view almost 10% of the total responses were green and 32% of the subjects reported seeing green at least once. • Evidence for minority influence.

  8. Key Question: HOW do minorities have influence • The answer lies in understanding their style of argumentation and how different styles are interpreted by the majority. • Consider the following cases. • Freud: Theory of infantile sexuality. • Galileo: Earth revolves around sun. • How did society react to them? How did they react to their opposition? How did they change people’s opinions?

  9. How did Freud and Galileo exert influence? • Conventional wisdom tells us that we must win friends to influence people. • Therefore, they should have first conformed to the group, demonstrated their competence and then slowly shifted their view over time. • A minority must earn “idiosyncracy credit” to have influence (Hollander, 1964).

  10. Evidence for the power of consistency • Freud responded, “I think therefore that one has to be content to state one’s point of view and relate one’s experiences in as clear and decided a way as possible and not trouble too much about the reaction of one’s audiences.”

  11. When Do Minorities Have Influence? • Minorities have the most influence when they are consistent and maintain their viewpoint over time. • Consistency triggers an attribution of confidence. • Result: Maybe they know something I don’t? Gains legitimacy and the potential to have influence. • Bottom Line: One need NOT win friends to influence people. Does this theory fit with your personal experiences? Have you ever witnessed a minority view come to be accepted within a group?

  12. Caveat to Consistency: Appearing Dogmatic • Exception when consistency is perceived to be dogmatic. • Mindless repetition, while consistent, does not lead to influence. People must be able to argue their position in a flexible way. • Flexible: Ability to alternate between more than one counter-argument while maintaining the consistency of one’s viewpoint. • Question: How can you differentiate between being consistent and being dogmatic? Is it always possible? Do you perceive the people in your discussion as dogmatic? How could they have made their arguments in a different way?

  13. The Dilemma of the Double Minority • Double Minority: When a person is a minority both in terms of their belief but also in terms of the social categories to which they belong. • Double minorities tend to be less persuasive: A gay person arguing for gay marriage is less persuasive than a straight person arguing for gay marriage (other examples?). • Important role of assumed self interest. • How can you use the “double minority” phenomenon to increase influence?

  14. Next Week: Understanding and using minority influence • Two reasons that majority and minority influence are not the same process: • Majority influence results in compliance (going along in public, but not believing in private) while minority influence results in conversion (believing in private without acknowledging it in public). • Minority influence makes people think divergently (open minded), while majority influence makes people think convergently (narrow minded).

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