Minority Social Influence - Assignment Example

Social Influence Introduction Every kind of living species has a means to coordinate with, influence, and direct other members of the same species. The manner by which some member species exert influence over other members is their means of social influence. Social influence is any noncoercive procedure, technique, manipulation, or device, which depends on the sociopsychological environment of a class of organism, that changes or creates behaviour or belief of the subject members of the same class (Forgas and Williams, 2001). Such technique can either be based on the consequences of the self-organizing characteristics of the social system or specific actions of the agent. Social influence strategies pave for the efficient allocation of community resources, providing social species an evolutionary advantage by gaining sufficient resources for survival. Humans employ various modes of social influence, which are highly adaptive to different environmental and social situations (Weiner, 2003). Techniques can be distinguished in terms of the primary forms of influence: power and deception. While power is associated with the control of the available resources for existence or the promulgation of war, an outright deception fools an organism to do things that covertly do not serve their benefits. That is, social influence employs strategies that apparently based on the social nature of the target organism. In particular, people naturally feel dissonance, value scarce resources, seek phantom goals, fear some events or things, make context-dependent judgment, return a favour, adopt social roles within a social group, and empathize with other individuals. Social influence utilise these human characteristics to evoke processes like conformity or changing one’s belief or behaviour to match with that of the social group, yield to social forces, persuasion or attitude change, and compliance (Weiner, Freedheim, Schinka, and Velicer, 2003). Minority Social Influence Minority social influence pertains to the influence exerted by the minority group on the members of the majority group (Hewstone and Martin, 2005). Decisions, in various tasks, are made not by a single person but through the consensus of a group. However, members of the group may often have contradicting views on a certain issue that bring chaos in the process of decision making. For instance, juries may possess opposing view on the innocence or guilt of the defendant on a particular crime. This disagreement, generally, is non-equally represented within the group. For a twelve-person jury, for example, only four jurors believe in the innocence of the defendant while the remaining jurors put the blame and legal liability of the crime to the defendant; the defendant’s innocence is expressed by the minority of the jury, whereas the majority claimed the defendant’s guilt. The subgroups, of course, may differ in individual characteristics, status, or power, the terms “majority” and “minority” here denote the numerical or qualitative aspect of those who support opposing views. Further, either majority or minority groups could exert effort to change the view of the opposing group and win over the issue in concurrence to the group’s view. Even though members of the same group share a common goal of exerting influence on the group with opposing views, their motivations, strategies, and outcomes of their attempts differ (De Drue and De Vries, 2001). As it may seem, majority group is more influential due to their numerical clout, but when the members of the minority group are fervent in achieving the goal of their group, they are highly motivated to win over the majority group. This is more likely as the attainment of goal has direct implications on the minority group. For instance, a firm decided to abolish a department with less number of employees, as an efficient way of reducing cost of operations. The members then of the target department, spontaneously, would lobby an alternative plan to avoid losing their jobs. Members of the minority group are also eager to influence the members of the majority in the belief that they possessed greater expertise than the members of the latter group (Pavitt and Curtis, 1994). The minority members of a medical group, for example, can overturn the decision of the majority members by insisting their knowledge and expertise. Moreover, the minority members, because they are less in number, frequently feel threatened by the majority members. Although it is easier to side with the majority to bring the group into an agreement, the minority members take a stand, especially when at stake is exceedingly important to them, and are then motivated to strive to enlist additional members so as to, if not to outnumber the majority group, at least be equal of the majority in numbers (De Drue and De Vries, 2001). Generally, the minority group moves to change the belief or behaviour of the majority group members, while the latter group tend to maintain their status quo. Thus, the majority members promote compliance, regardless of personal beliefs, in group members. The minority group, in contrast, instigate the conversion of private beliefs in group members. The minority group members believe that the change in private belief will eventually result to behavioural change, which jibes with the inculcated private belief (De Drue and De Vries, 2001). The minority members, to induce conversion, catch the attention of the majority group, articulate their alternative view, and flaunt its strong rationale. In this manner, uncertainty or doubt would cast over the majority members, developing consideration on the proposition of the minority group as the best alternative (De Drue and De Vries, 2001). Over time, the minority members must consistently advocate their views to exhibit the credibility of their proposition as the best alternative. Lastly, the minority group should convey to the majority that the only means to put their groups into an agreement is by changing the views of their members. The Dual Process Theory The process by which minority establishes social influence on a larger group was exemplified by Serge Moscovici in his dual process theory. The dual process or conversion theory proposed the mechanism, wherein the minority group creates social influence on the majority group. Moscovici contended that both majority and minority members exert social influence within the group in a number of processes (Kruglanski and Mackie, 1990). One of such processes is through comparison. When an individual becomes aware that his view differs from the rest of the group members, he compares his view to that of the majority and more likely, side with the majority. By conforming to the majority, he keeps off the punishment that the group may enforce on deviant individuals. Nevertheless, this compliance may not be internalized by the individual because the majority members are primarily concern with the overt behaviour and not on internalized beliefs. Regarding the involved cognitive process in compliance, the individual adapts with the majority with minimal cognitive effort, as the group maintains a smooth functioning (Carruthers, 2002). On the contrary, when an individual becomes aware that his view differs from that of the minority members of the group, the process is different. As the minority consistently takes a stand and confidently advocates the credibility of their view, the majority members can possibly engage in an in-depth cognitive process to gain understanding on the deviant position of the minority (Chaiken, 1999). Consequently, the majority seeks for the validation of the minority proposition. As a result of this sense-making process, the majority validates the minority position. Thus, the mechanism through which a minority exerts influence within a group is a validation process. Although the validation process would not abruptly cause any changes in the opinion of the majority and the majority can still impose sanctions to deviant members, the in-depth cognitive process the majority engaged into, gradually creates internal, covert changes on the beliefs of its members (Graen, 2003). Since this possible change occurs covertly through internalisation, the process is not merely “compliance,” but termed as “conversion.” As well, additional benefits, resulting from minority influence, can be accrued to the group, including greater cohesiveness and satisfaction. Allowing individuals to freely express their respective opinions, even opposing views, often leads to a greater satisfaction in their group membership. Furthermore, the conversion of belief, from minority to majority and vice versa, not only brings the group into an agreement, but strengthens the group cohesiveness as well. Members, who see that the values and goals of their group are concoctions of their respective beliefs, continue to support the group in its every endeavour. Self-Categorization Theory The self-categorization theory, developed by John Turner and his colleagues, primarily described the cognitive constructs behind the general social-identity perspective in social psychology (Bordens and Horowitz, 2002). Accordingly, the theory holds that only individuals who possessed similarity to “self,” a dimension of influence, can serve as agents of influence. Above all, similarity to others leads to consensual validation of opinions, while dissimilarity provides a ground for the explanation and dismissal of opinion differences. In contrast with the dual process theory, the self-categorisation theory is a single process theory, asserting that majority and minority influences are affected by the same process. However, the self-categorization theory does not asserts that similar others can always act as agents of influences, as other individuals may resist to change by recategorising the group, the relevance of the influence, the group, or by acting against the source. Applying self-categorization theory to majority and minority influence, David and Turner (2001) argued that a minority can exert influence only when it is defined as the in-group’s target, whereas the categorisation of the minority as dissimilar to the self decreases its influence. Further, shift in perspective, from intragroup to intergroup, paves for indirect influences. Individuals perceive, on the basis of intergroup, minority in a wider perspective and consider the minority not as “them,” but part of “us,” who fundamentally share common values with “them” and as someone on their side. Hence, the minority can induce indirect changes covertly. Concordantly, David and Turner found that “minority conversion” and “majority compliance” are more likely when the source of influence is categorised similar to the target in-group (Cooper and Hogg, 2003). When the source of influence is categorised as dissimilar to the target of influence, neither indirect nor direct influence is possible. Analysis and Conclusion The outcome of the minority influence heavily depends on the strategies employed. Most of the time, the minority elicit social influence that is primarily indirect and more private than the majority group (Alvaro and Crano, 1997). Although the impact of the social influence made by the minority is not instantly evident, after reasonable time, the minority influence creates behavioural changes on the members of the majority group. In addition, the minority group can influence majority members on issues that have no direct bearing with the task at hand. This minority influence incites divergent thinking among the majority members by introducing multiple perspectives in dealing with an issue (Nemeth and Goncalo, 2005). On the other hand, the adoption of flexible thinking among the majority members may result to belief changes and generation of views related to the proposition of the minority group. In terms of abortion rights, for instance, majority members of a decision body condemn the propositions on abortion made by minority members. Although divergent thinking could not entirely change the views of the majority, the majority members may change views on related issues like considering the use of contraceptives, instead of giving an absolute support to abortion rights. This flexible thinking serves as an initial step towards further changes in the near future as the minority consistently advocates the credibility of their propositions (Nemeth and Goncalo, 2005). References Alvaro, E. M., and Crano, W. D. 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A., and Velicer, W. F. (2003). Handbook of psychology. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More