What makes a minority an effective minority in a group?
What makes a minority an effective minority in a group?
How does one go from a minority that is ignored, to a minority that is listened to? Researchers who have looked into this have found that there are three elements that are important.
Consistency-- a persistent minority is influential.
The minority group member needs to have self-confidence, both in terms of their position and their ability to stand up to the group. Attitude can be more persuasive than fact.
Finally, defections from the majority are important. The only way for a minority to become the majority is for people to defect from the existing majority. But this is a snowball effect: once one person has defected, more are likely to follow. One-time members of the majority group can be viewed as more persuasive when they become members of the minority.
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