Examples Of Minority Influence

Social influence can take different forms. Majority and minority influence research has studied how groups influence the attitudes and behaviours within society of individuals and groups while also promoting an ingroup and outgroup attitude that comes from Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Majority influence is a normative influence where people ‘conform’ to the majority (Cialdini and Goldstein, 2004) attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours to group norms and it has the power to reward or punish. Minority influence occurs when an individual or small group reject the majority norm (Cook, 2011) and seek change by making the majority reconsider their views with new concepts and ideas, which is an example of informational influence. These

He investigated the effects of minority influence on a majority with the blue/green experiment (Moscovici et al, 1969). The experiment placed four genuine participants with two confederates and they were all asked to identify different shades of blue while the confederates mistakenly identified the slides as being green. Moscovici found that the participants opinions were influenced by the confederates’ minority view. This is an example of normative social influence, when we conform because of the need for acceptance by others or to adhere to social norms. One criticism of Moscovici green/blue experiment were of a participant of the study facing a majority/minority and does not look at being part of a majority or minority and simulating the real challenges they face, especially the minority (Martin and Hewstone, 2008). Most of the research by Moscovici and others is based on experiments conducted in controlled conditions using incidental groups, participants of this group are brought together for a short time and have minimal commitment to each other or the group in general. Due to this the studies could not recreate the determination of minority groups who face greater opposition and have a greater commitment to their

The commitment of a member also impacts the ability to affect change; a minority member is usually committed to their goal. The tasks that are involved are also important, the more a member acts towards this goal and the more motivated they are to continue which is known as social energizing. When a majority member acts, most try to conform to the minimum standard of the majority position. Being part of the majority and agreement with the majority position can translate into action (Allport, 1935). However, this is not always the case, there can be a gap between agreement and action. When this occurs the majority members may believe that this past behaviour is sufficient to ensure normative compliance to the majority group and then idle, especially if the tasks to conform are trivial. This is also known as social loafing (Karau and Williams, 1993). Williams, Cheung and Choi (2000) studied this commitment on how social exclusion had an impact on conformity, when participants were ignored in an online video game they were more likely to conform on a perceptual task. When people’s sense of belonging is threatened they have an increased motivation to belong to a group and are therefore more likely to conform to the majority over the minority.

Martin et al (2015) recently put forward the theory of expecting future interaction (EFI) in a group affects the minority influence. They found that minority members express more opposition to the group, which produces conflict, when