We’re making a small diversion here today, going off the mainline track towards publishing land onto a branch line to my old psychology house. This is a result of making a comment on the particularly shiny Zoë Westhof’s site, and then getting a beautifully polite request from Jé Maverick (I heartily recommend his poetry) to tell him more. And you know how we Brits can’t resist a polite man…
So anyway, I used to be a psychology teacher, and one of my favourite topics was all about minority influence – the way that a small group, or individual can alter the way the majority thinks, and ultimately acts. The reason it’s a favourite is because of the impact this would have on the teenagers I used to teach. The day of that lesson was the day I taught them the mechanics of how to change the world.
To really understand the influence of the minority, it can be helpful to understand what one of the major effects of the majority can be: compliance. Compliance is when somebody acts in line with the majority, but secretly doesn’t agree.
Let’s say there’s a group of people who are debating which film to watch at the cinema. If a consensus develops in the majority, it’s much more likely that the one or two people who don’t want to watch the romantic comedy end up sitting in a dark room with other people, wondering why so many romantic comedies are made, and how few of them have decent scripts or interesting plots. But they still sit there. This is compliance – there are other social reasons to go along with the majority, so the majority behaviour is adopted, even if it makes us miserable.
Sound familiar?
I’m not going to go into the mechanics of those processes. Instead, I want to tell you how to change the world, right? So in the seventies this immensely cool (but unfortunately sexist if his experimental designs are anything to go by) psychologist called Moscovici comes along and says “Solomon Asch may have the coolest name in psychology, but he’s spent far too much time paying attention to the majority. If you look at history, it’s the minority that effects change. Let’s look at them instead!” (I’m not quoting verbatim here, you understand…)
He did some experiments, not as sexy or exciting as the majority influence ones (and my God, are there some exciting and sexy experiments in that field I can tell you), but they still showed an effect. (In fact, some of them were decidedly dodgy, but not all of them.) Then he boiled his findings down to four characteristics that the minority has to have in order to effect conversion – this is when a person acts in line with their private thoughts, not just to go along with the crowd. I’m sure you’ll agree that conversion is the Don when it comes to social influence. The thing is, it takes a long time. Conversion begins with private agreement, and during that time, a person might still behave in line with the majority until a time comes when they feel confident enough to act publicly in line with their private thoughts.
The Suffragette movement is an example of this, as is the attitude changes towards homosexuality – and that is still happening – social change doesn’t sweep across all groups of people at exactly the same time.
The four characteristics that increase the likelihood that the minority can influence the majority are:
1. Consistency – if someone is consistent in their behaviour and expressed views, we are more likely to believe that their behaviour is due to internally held beliefs, than conformity to external beliefs (this is in line with something that’s also really quite interesting, called ‘attribution theory’, but that’s another story)
2. Flexibility – the minority must not appear to be rigid or dogmatic – it simply entrenches both sides.
3. Commitment – If someone dedicates their life to a cause, or radically changes the way they live, or simply puts a visible amount of effort into it, people in the majority are more likely to assume that the minority view has value.
4. Relevance – the minority will be more successful if their views are in line with social trends, or get a helping hand from external events. Take the impact of the first world war on women’s rights – after proving they were capable of working and taking on responsibility like men if given the opportunity, it was much harder to argue that they were universally inferior.
Of course, this is only part of the story, and there are many, many factors that will affect each person’s private beliefs and how likely they are to express those publicly. Even something as minor as where people sit at a meeting can impact upon how influential they are for heaven’s sake! (Hint: always sit at the head of the table if you’re there to be influential.) Humans are both wonderfully simple, and beautifully complicated all at the same time.
I think the take home for anyone with a minority viewpoint who wants to change the world are these five steps:
1. Think your message through and stick to it.
2. Don’t stick to it so rigidly that you come across as unreasonable. Listen to the opposing argument, sympathise, then look for a way to help the majority identify with the minority.
3. Show how serious you are. Invest your time and energy; prove that the minority viewpoint is worthy.
4. Look at social trends and leverage that knowledge to support your argument.
5. Be visible, build a groundswell to give people the confidence to agree with you. These steps get harder, don’t they?
All of these are only more likely to create silent conversion; getting people to behave publicly in line with their private agreement with the minority is much harder. If lots of people are talking about it, and the message is getting out there, a minority view can eventually be perceived as a majority viewpoint (hence saturation of the media as a tactic used by wealthy minorities). A celebrity endorsement can go a long way to tip the private agreement into public behaviour. “Well if it’s good enough for Angelina, it’s good enough for me.”
But it doesn’t always work. Perhaps it isn’t the right time, perhaps the majority is too strong, perhaps the message is so hard for anyone to privately identify with and they just can’t relate enough to the minority to be convinced. But it is true to say that only minorities change the world. And thank goodness, otherwise I’d be a terrible housewife and my husband would be a miserable breadwinner.
I hope this helps. Normal stomping and rambling throughout the lands of the unpublished will resume soon.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Emma, I so appreciate you taking the time to break this down … I completely agree that it’s fascinating stuff! As I’m working with nonprofits/activists at the moment, your advice seems more valuable than ever.
It also reminds me of a seminar I took in college about interest groups — we studied the tricky process of “creating an issue” and how minority social movements gain solid ground (or don’t). This gives a lot of context to those issues!
Zoe’s last blog post..What is Naked Creativity to You?
Hmm, maybe that “flexibility” one explains why pretty much every minority I ever encounter swiftly persuades me to disagree with them!
Yay! I’m so relieved it was useful, and interesting. I had one of those fearful moments after publishing it, I worried that I would be the only one!
Thank you so much, Emma. It is quite a prolonged process (in the real world), isn’t it? I wonder how long it took Moscovici to come to these conclusions in his studies? I might look into his work further.
The really interesting piece of this world-changing puzzle for me is the compliance issue – how individuals already have a seemingly private agreement with an opposite or different belief, yet carry on with another acceptable or popular behavior (I believe that on an individual level this is called cognitive dissonance – though I could be wrong…). What is it that shifts that individual from compliance to non-compliance? And what is it that keeps them from being consistent when it is consistency that is one of the selling points? Fear of ostracism?
I’m going to have to go away and think of a few things. My head is literally exploding with questions! Thank you so much for writing this at such short notice, and per my request. I owe you one!
Jé Maverick’s last blog post..The Things You Couldn’t Take – Confessional Poem
@Dom – yes, I think that is arguably the hardest thing – how to stay true to your position whilst giving a little ground.
@J – Moscovici’s work was far from perfect, but what it did do was get people interested in the minority’s impact, which is why I talk him up here. Some of his experimental methodology was very poor (imho).
I’d be interested to hear your questions, I enjoyed writing this so much I’m dabbling with the idea of starting a psychology blog, so if I could start with topics people might find interesting and relevant, that can only be a good thing
This is really interesting stuff – it’s great to read blog posts that encourage individual expression, thanks!
Seems like some of the five main points (especially two and three) come down to sincerity. Believing what you’re saying, listening to other people to make your own point of view stronger, not being too pushy – all these are characteristic of sincere belief (as opposed to dogma).
I posted some follow-up thoughts on Twitter, too
Hi James, nice to meet you and welcome. I wholeheartedly agree about sincerity, and I think that comes across in the people that I connect with the most readily online. That’s tangled up with the consistency aspect too I think, and attribution theory. Thanks for the Twitter mentions too
This is an excellent post! When I was first making the decision to self publish my work, I had a lot of angst about it on my blog. And what was difficult was that a lot of my blog readers were writers either traditionally published or seeking traditional publishing, and so I was this little lone voice, worried about what people would think.
But as I weighed the pros and cons of my decision and became more commited to it and open about it, I noticed a funny thing start to happen…
Suddenly I had commenters admitting to me they were thinking or doing the same things. And they were shy about it at first, but as my voice got stronger their voices got stronger. And we supported and reinforced each other. And it creates a ripple effect. And that’s part of why I’m so “loud” about it.
Because there is too much pressure to conform in publishing, and that’s not what books should be about IMO.
Zoe Winters’s last blog post..Knee-Jerk Reaction
Very interesting article, Emma. When I first took the leap out of corporate life into freelance-world almost twenty years ago the prevailing attitude at the time among friends and family was … ‘you’re going to do WHAT? Are you MAD??’
And I must admit, I sometimes felt like that myself.
The interesting thing was, though, that the longer I stuck with it and the more people saw that I wasn’t actually starving in a garret (although it came close, a couple of times!) the more interested they became, and some of them gave me work, and then some of them took to the freelance life too!
And now, of course, the move away from ‘Cubicle Nation’ towards self-employment is becoming a fast-growing social trend.
So yes, I also like to think that minorities have the power to change the world!
As one ex-psychologist to another, nice post, Emma.
What I’ve never understood about all this is why people want to change the world at all. It’s never been one of my ambitions. If people don’t like what I like, or do what I want to do, I just go off and plough my own furrow. I have very few friends as a result and I live on a mountain in genteel poverty, but conformity has always seemed like a much worse option.
Changing the world is a lot of hard work and, sooner or later, someone will change it all back again. I definitely do not subscribe to the notion that humanity progresses! It seems to me that the best that can be achieved is to create a small, temporary bubble of comfort around oneself and to stay within it as much as is possible.
@Graham> If you don’t understand why someone would want to change the world it’s probably because you aren’t starving, imprisoned for not liking your own government or about to have your country sink because we love our cars too much! (OK, I’m teasing you most unfairly here, but hopefully you see what I mean.)
I understand you fully, Graham. It’s perhaps not the world that is going to change as a result of action, but little parts of it. I doubt that anybody wants to change everything, as everything doesn’t need changing, but I have to say this – building a bubble of comfort around one’s self and living isolated on a mountain is a very good way of not changing the world. But I don’t think it’s necessarily nonconformist. It might even be the status quo – we can build our mountains anywhere…the cities are full of the isolated and the cynical. In your defense, I think that wanting to change the world is fairly common too – it’s the difference between having the desire and acting on it that creates the change.
Jé Maverick’s last blog post..The Things You Couldn’t Take – Confessional Poem
Well, Jé, I wish I had your understanding of me! For myself, I don’t even understand my pet dog fully.
You make being isolated and cynical sound like a bad thing. I happen to believe that change is mostly perpetrated by naive idiots who have no idea what they’re doing and whose actions tend to lead nowhere. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, as they say. Humanity is too stupid to know what changes would be good for it. I offer the whole of human history as evidence. Unless there is a huge increase in our intelligence, we will continue to be lost and clueless. Hence we stagger around like drunks, going this way and that – a revolution here, a social movement there. One day it’s facism, the next it’s hegemony. One day we’re handing out condoms to Africans, the next day we’re telling them to abstain or starve. One day we’re handing out copies of the Socialist Worker on street corners, the next day we’re saving for a mortgage downpayment.
It would be lovely to change the world for the better. It would be lovely if there was a God, or fairies, or kindly aliens. And who are we to say what is better and what is worse? We are so ignorant and stupid, yet so arrogant.
Psychology is like rhetoric – an extremely dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Some philosophers thought rhetoric should only be practiced by those with good intent. I feel the same about psychology. It’s a shame you can’t control who has access to these tools. It’s a shame no-one can agree on what is right and what is wrong. And it’s a shame that the most ruthless will use the tools they have most ruthlessly.
I read recently that the best way to secure adherents for a religion is to suffer a lot for it, preferably to die for it (see step 3 above.) Yes, it leads to change, and most people would tell you it is a good thing. For myself, I prefer my bubble.
Graham Storrs’s last blog post..How Not to Write a Novel
Fascinating as a particular Vulcan would say.
I must say it’s not the kind of post I was expecting but I read it thoroughly none-the-less. I can see now you were a great teacher. The passion for your subject comes across in your words though I’m not sure I’d ever describe psychology as sexy or exciting
So why did you stop teaching? Why don’t you start another blog on psychology?
Marc – WelshScribe’s last blog post..Help Me Improve – Reader Audit
@Graham Ahh dog psychology. Now *that* I get. Simple, straightforward and balanced.
We could learn a lot from man’s best friend
Marc – WelshScribe’s last blog post..Help Me Improve – Reader Audit
Whoa – quite a debate starting here, never thought I’d see it on my lil’ blog. I just want to say that I’m glad it’s got people interested, but I’d like it to stay nice. Call me scared of confrontation if you will, but I just thought I’d say it before it gets more heated.
@ Zoe and Caroline – glad you found it interesting enough to apply it to personal experiences. I think there are such thing as ripple effects, that might change our corners of the world, and that’s great.
@ graham – that means a lot to be applauded by an ex-psychologist. I think all we can ever do is change our own worlds – so much of what we experience is down to perception anyway; some days everything seems great, some days insurmountable, even though practically nothing external has changed.
As for your views on whether humanity will ever improve, well I haven’t made my mind up on that front. Some days I think it has and will continue to do so, other days I don’t. Pattern?
I do agree in that we are just base creatures with a thin veneer of civilisation. But that veneer is sometimes really great.
@Dom – steady there tiger, not everyone knows how fluffy you are in the real world ;o)
J and Graham – I’m staying out of this debate!
Marc – Why thank you. I did love teaching, so much. Why did I stop? Well, that is a very long and complicated story, and far too involved for a comment and not interesting enough for a post. Suffice to say it was a combination of bad decisions, bad luck and freakish events.
I am seriously considering starting a psychology blog, I enjoyed writing this post so much, and it was only an aside – here is where I write about writing. But there is so much to write about – especially all the sexy and exciting bits
Well fielded, Emma. I’ll be staying out of that debate too.
Jé Maverick’s last blog post..The Things You Couldn’t Take – Confessional Poem
I guess if you really simplify it – it takes an individual to form a minority to change a majority. Possibly this is why many religions regard the individual as ‘the whole world’.
Some people are just braver than others when it comes to standing up for what they believe in (the biggies like human rights).
Sometimes compliance is due to compromise (as in a romantic or platonic relationship or a group of friends).
I don’t know much about psychology in the formal sense but found this a most interesting read. Thanks
Paisley’s last blog post..The Last Word
Dom, I wish there was somewhere I could continue this discussion apart from here (since it makes Emma uncomfortable. Sorry, Em.) You’re actually wrong on most counts when you describe my lack of motivation for change. Although I’m not starving now, I was brought up in such poverty that we often went without food. In my youth I was frequently stopped and searched and generally hassled by the police. I was even arrested once by armed police on suspicion of being a terrorist. So I’m not too keen on governments. And all our countries are about to be sunk, or whatever, soon. The beautiful forested hills where I live now are forecast to become an uninhabitable desert sometime in the next century. Nor am I insensitive to the suffering of others. (As well as my writing blog, which is very genteel, I have a ranting blog where I air my dismay and disgust at the state of the world. Maybe you could drop by and talk about changing the world there.)
OK, Emma, I’ll shut up now.
Graham Storrs’s last blog post..How Not to Write a Novel
Interesting post – and comments too!
I won’t be one of the world changers, but there are parts of my arms-reach world to which I’ll apply these useful characteristics. Thanks for writing this; I learned a lot.
This is a fascinating subject. I for one would love to read your psychology blog if it does appear. You’re right, majority influence and things like Asch’s conformity experiments are fare more widely known than minority influence work. It’s really interesting and I agree that you explain it beautifully.
Short version: Yes, more please!
Queenie’s last blog post..Reasons to be cheerful: 1, 2, 3
Paisley, Laurie and Queenie – I’m glad you found it informative, and thank you for the compliments. I’m almost certain that I’ll be setting up a psychology blog soon.