1.1.12

Minority Influence & Social Change

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Minority Influence

Minority influence refers to a type of social influence where individuals reject established majority group norms. It is achieved through a process of conversion, where the majority are gradually ‘won over’ to a minority viewpoint.

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Conversion

  • Conversion is the process where the majority gradually adopt a new minority viewpoint or behaviour. This new belief or behaviour becomes accepted both publically and privately.
  • Conversion is a type of internalisation and happens through informational social influence. This means the minority provide new information and ideas to the majority.
  • Minority influence takes longer to achieve than majority influence because majority influence is based on compliance.
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Cryptomnesia

  • The process by which minority attitudes, behaviours and beliefs become majority held views is called social cryptomnesia.
  • The new belief takes form without a conscious understanding of where it came from or the processes involved.
  • The stages of social cryptomnesia involve the initial conversion of a small number of people.
  • As more people change their attitude, change quickens. Van Avermaet (1966) called this the snowball effect.

Factors Involved in Minority Influence

Minority influence is brought about through behavioural change. In particular - consistency, commitment and flexibility.

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Consistency

  • For the minority to influence the majority, the minority needs to be consistent (or unchanging) in both their opinions and behaviour. This indicates that the minority are committed.
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Commitment

  • Commitment is seen as stronger if the minority has had to resist social pressure and abuse because of their viewpoint.
  • Consistency and commitment create doubts in established norms. This leads to people re-examining their own behaviour and beliefs.
  • Suffering a high financial or emotional pain are good ways of signalling a commitment to something.
  • Ignaz Semmelweiss, the doctor who first proposed handwashing to stop the spread of germs was ostracised for his views, yet he stuck to them. He died in a mental hospital.
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Flexibility

  • Consistent minorities that are inflexible are not persuasive.
  • Those who are flexible (moderate, co-operative and reasonable) are seen as more persuasive.
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Systematic and superficial processing

  • If the minority is consistent and committed, there is a greater chance that individuals will engage in systematic processing. This is where the minority viewpoint is carefully considered over time.
  • A viewpoint that is instantly dismissed without analysis is said to undergo superficial processing.
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Style of thinking

  • The minority can get a majority to consider an issue if they are presented with arguments for and against. This increases the influence of the minority, so thinking style is important.
  • When the minority can get the majority to discuss and debate an issue, they become more persuasive.
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Identification

  • If the minority can identify with the majority, they can be more persuasive. This can be achieved by appealing to similarities such as gender.
  • Maas et al. (1982) found that a homosexual minority arguing for homosexual rights were less persuasive at changing the majority heterosexual position than a heterosexual minority.
  • The heterosexual majority saw the homosexual minority as being different to them and having a personal interest and swaying the majority.

Social Change

Social change refers to the way in which society develops via shifts in people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. Social change happens all the time. But it happens gradually with minority influence as the driving force.

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Social change

  • Social change can be both positive (e.g. equal rights for women) or negative (e.g. the eugenics movement that viewed some races as genetically inferior).
  • So majority influence helps to maintain social order but can be broken down over time by a consistent and flexible minority.
  • Majority influence also helps people to understand the behaviour and attitudes that are expected of society.
  • Minority viewpoints can slowly win the majority over and eventually become new social norms.
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Social influence and change

  • Minority influence can change social attitudes and behaviour over time. This results in a strong and long-lasting form of conformity that involves fundamental changes of belief systems.
  • Individuals concentrate on trying to understand why the minority hold a particular viewpoint.
  • When conversion to the minority viewpoint takes place, people begin to look at the issue in the same way as the minority.
  • Innovation then takes place and new ideas and behaviours become the mainstream.
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Compliance

  • During the process of social change, a moment of critical mass happens where the minority viewpoint becomes mainstream and the majority begin to conform through compliance.
  • But compliance may be public rather than private and people may still privately hold their original beliefs without showing them.
  • Identification is needed for permanent change to take place.
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Advantages of minority social change

  • Social change brought about by minority influence tends to be gradual. So it has less of a disruptive impact on social order and causes less harm and conflict than more rapid social change.
  • Slow, gradual change also means new ideas can be tested to check that they are suitable for mainstream society.
  • Once social change has taken place, conformity consolidates and maintains new beliefs and behaviours as part of the new social order.
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Example: Greenpeace

  • Greenpeace began as a small environmental pressure group in the early 1970s.
  • At first, its members were seen as unconventional and little eccentric by the majority, but today they are recognised and are a legitimate voice of environmentalism.
  • This change from fringe group to majority acceptance took time. It was gradually brought about by a convincing minority, who won the majority around to the importance of the issues raised.

Jump to other topics

1Social Influence

2Memory

3Attachment

4Psychopathology

5Approaches in Psychology

6Biopsychology

7Research Methods

8Issues & Debates in Psychology (A2 only)

9Option 1: Relationships (A2 only)

10Option 1: Gender (A2 only)

11Option 1: Cognition & Development (A2 only)

12Option 2: Schizophrenia (A2 only)

13Option 2: Eating Behaviour (A2 only)

14Option 2: Stress (A2 only)

15Option 3: Aggression (A2 only)

16Option 3: Forensic Psychology (A2 only)

17Option 3: Addiction (A2 only)

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