Social influence

majority influence and minority influence

Majority influence

Majority influence

• Social influence resulting from exposure to the opinions of a majority or the majority of one’s group (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas 2015)

Asch Experiments

a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions

Muzafer Sherif study on conformity 1935

put subjects in a dark room and told them to watch a pinpoint of light and say how far it moved (autokinetic effect)

Minority influence

• Either an individual or a group in a numerical minority can influence the majority (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas, 2015)

Asch paradigm

“despite large effect, the preponderance of judgments was independent, evidence that under the present conditions, the force of the perceived data far exceeded that of the majority”

when naive participants write down their answers instead of saying them out loud, conformity rates drop from 37% to 12.5%

Unanimity

variation where confederate gives a deviate ,but wrong answer decreases conformity.

Independent participants

• Confident that they are right

• Feeling of discomfort and feeling incorrect but obligation to respond truthfully

• Asch 1956 → only rarely did we find a subject completely free of doubt

Yielding participants

• Distortion of judgment → e.g.: “i only assumed my answers to be wrong, because i disagreed with everyone else”

• Distortion of action → e.g.: “I might be alienating a few people. The group had a definite idea, my idea disagreed, this might arouse anger”

Informational social influence

we accept information as evidence of reality. Goal to make accurate and valid judgements

– evidence:

• Sherif’s 1936 autokinetic study on norm formation

• Meta-analysis on Ash-like experiments found that conformity was significantly higher the more ambiguous the stimulus

Normative social influence

1. need for social approval, compliance (public) without acceptance (private)

– evidence:

• Asch variation with answers written down when faced with incorrect majority: 12.5% conformity rate

• Deutsch and Gerard 1955 experiment

Referent informational influence

adopt the norms , beliefs and behaviours of the prototypical ingroup member. Maximises similarities between ingroup members and differences between ingroup and outgroup members

Moscovici – the importance of behavioural style

1. Consistency –over time and between members

2. Investment –significant personal or material sacrifice

3. Autonomy – no ulterior motives

4. Rigidity – not dogmatic yet consistent

– developed a conflict model → provoke conversion

Moscovici -- minority vs majority influence

• majority primarily induces compliance (public conformity) through comparison processes (low attention to the issue)

• Minority private change through cognitive conflict and restructuring through validation processes (high attention to the issue)

Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux 1969

– colour perception task → blue slides that varied in intensity

– consistent condition → confederates called all slides green

– inconsistent condition → confederates called ⅔ of the slides green and ⅓ blue

• 0.2% green responses in the control condition

• 1.1% green responses in the inconsistent condition

• 8.2% green responses in a consistent condition

Moscovici & Lage 1976

• Consistent minority (2 confederates, 4 naive)

• Inconsistent minority (2 confederates, 4 naive)

• A single consistent confederate

→ unanimous majority (3 confederates, 1 naive)

→ non-unanimous majority (4 confederates, 2 naive)

• Two consistent confederates (10% green)

• Two inconsistent confederates (<1% green)

• A single consistent confederate (1% green) → only the consistent minority condition shifted participants’ colour thresholds

Conversion theory 1980

• Attention to arguments > private acceptance

• Latent (time) and indirect effects

Perez & Mugny 1987

exposure to pro-abortion message portrayed as either a majority or minority position

• No minority influence on attitudes toward abortion

• Increase in support for birth control → indirect change on a related issue

Alvaro and Crano 1997

exposure to a position advocating that gay people serve in the military in the US portrayed as either a majority or minority opinion

• Minority influence produced no change on related attitudes

• Minority influence increased opposition to gun control → indirect change on a related issue

Wood et al. 1994

• Meta-analysis of over 100 studies

• Minorities are generally less persuasive than majorities on direct measures , not on indirect ones

• Persuasive compared to control conditions

Source-context-elaboration model

elaboration = thinking about the message

low elaboration > heuristic processing → favours majority

high elaboration > systematic processing → favours neither

intermediate elaboration > conversion theory → systematic processing of minority view

Nemeth

difference between majority and minotiry influence is the type rather than the amount of thinking

majority > narrow focus on the message

minority > broader focus, divergent thinking

Self-categorization theory (John Turner)

there is a continual competition between self-categorization at the personal and group level and that self-perception varies along a continuum defined by the conflict between the two and their shifting relative strengths