Evaluating minority influence

POPULATION VALIDITY: Moscovici's study had a limited and biased sample of 172 female participants from America, thus limiting the generalisability of the results to other populations. It is unclear whether males would respond to minority influence in the same way. Additionally, research indicates that females may be more susceptible to conformity, so further research is needed to investigate the effect of minority influence on males and improve the population validity of the experiment.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES: Moscovici's study has been criticized for violating ethical guidelines by deceiving participants. They were told that they were participating in a colour perception task while it was actually an experiment on minority influence. This also means that participants did not provide fully informed consent. Although it is generally considered unethical to deceive participants, Moscovici's experiment required deception to achieve valid results, as participants may have acted differently if they were aware of the true aim, thus compromising the study's validity. A cost-benefit analysis would therefore suggest that the insights gained from this research outweigh the short-term costs to participants, which could be addressed through debriefing after the study. However, Moscovici's study should not serve as a precedent for unethical research practices, and researchers should always prioritize ethical principles and consider alternative methods to achieve valid results.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES: Research into minority influence is often criticised for its methodological issues. For instance, the task of judging the colour of a slide in Moscovici's study is artificial and lacks mundane realism since it is not a typical daily occurrence. Similarly, the lab conditions are too far removed from real-world cases of minority influence, such as political campaigning, which can have more significant implications for people's lives. Therefore, the external validity of Moscovici's research is limited, and the findings may not generalize to real-world situations.

RESEARCH SUPPORT: Moscovici's research into minority influence supports the notion of informational social influence. One of his variations involved asking participants to write down their answers instead of saying the colour of the slide out loud. This made their response private and not shared with other group members. Under these circumstances, it was found that agreement with the minority position was higher, suggesting that participants had internalized the viewpoint as true and correct. Moscovici suggests that the majority was convinced of the minority's argument but found it easier to confess this privately, as being associated with a minority position may seem 'radical.'