Serge Moscovici 1969

AIMS: To determine whether a minority can influence a majority of naive participants, and thus reverse the usual direction of social influence. Moscovici et al aimed to determine the conditions necessary for this to occur, in particular, the necessity for the minority to be consistent in their opinions.

PROCEDURE (METHOD): The participants were pre-tested to check for colour blindness. A laboratory experiment was carried out, in which participants were randomly allocated to either a consistent, inconsistent, or control condition. Each condition consisted of six participants; four naive participants (the majority), and two confederates (the minority). Participants were asked to describe the colour of 36 slides, all of which were blue, but which varied in brightness due to different filters. In the consistent condition, the two confederates described all 36 slides as green. In the inconsistent condition, the two confederates described 24 of the 36 slides as green and the remaining 12 slides as blue. In the control condition, there were no confederates. Minority influence was measured by the percentage of naive participants who yielded to the confederates by calling the blue slides green.

FINDINGS (RESULTS): In the consistent condition, 8.42% of the participants answered “green” and 32% conformed at least once. n the inconsistent condition, 1.25% of the participants answered “green”. In the control condition, only 0.25% of the participants answered “green”. Thus, the consistent condition showed the greatest yielding to minority influence. In a follow-up study, both experimental groups were more likely to report ambiguous blue/green slides as green compared to the control group.

CONCLUSIONS: A minority can have influence over the majority, and this influence is more effective when the minority is consistent. The fact that minorities are more persuasive when they are consistent has implications for people in leadership positions who are hoping to influence the majority.

CRITICISMS (EVALUATION):

• The research lacked experimental realism, since the experimental set-up was not very believable. The slide test was artificial and may have yielded demand characteristics because it was not believable. Thus, the research may lack internal validity, as the conversion (private change of opinion) may not have been a genuineeffect. It may have been due to demand characteristics (the cues that revealed conversion was expected).
• The research lacked mundane realism, that is, the research set-up had no relevance to real life. It took place in a controlled environment with an artificial task that is not representative of minority influence in real life social situations. Identifying the colour of a slide is trivial compared to real-life instances of minorityinfluence such as the views of political leaders or decision-making by juries. Consequently, the findings have low external validity as they cannot be generalised to real-life settings. Indeed, real-life studies often show very little impact of minorities on issues of importance.
• Moscovici et al focused on the distinction between the majority and the minority. In the real world, the distinction is more complex, because minorities typically have less power and status than majorities. This may be the reason why minorities rarely prevail in the real world.