Minority Influence and Social Change

12 Key excerpts on "Minority Influence and Social Change"

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  eBook - PDF

  The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology

  Concise Student Edition

  • Michael A Hogg, Joel Cooper, Michael A Hogg, Joel Cooper(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Summary and concluding remarks This chapter has summarized research examining a number of social-influence processes that aim either to control and maintain the group norm (majority influence and obedience to authority) or to change the group norm (minority influence). In dividing these processes into social control and social change, we again emphasize that this distinc-tion reflects the source of motives to influence other people and not the outcomes of influence. As this review shows, both majorities and minorities can bring about change in people’s attitudes, albeit under different circumstances. We have taken a chronological approach that reflects the progression of research through three distinct stages; studies examining exclusively majority or minority influence and, finally, research that examines both majority and minority influence within the same paradigm. These chronological stages also reflect con-trasting methodological and theoretical differences. For example, research on majority influence was strongly influenced by the functionalist model with its empha-sis on psychological dependency as the explanatory variable. By contrast, research on minority influence was framed within an attribution approach, with influ-ence being determined by the minority’s behavioral style (in particular, consistency). Finally, research examining both majority and minority influence has been conducted within the social-ognition tradition with emphasis upon the role of information-processing strategies upon social influence. The difference in research foci has, no doubt, affected the style of research and the causal models that they inspire. Early research on majority and, in particular, minority influence was inspired by real-life issues (see, for example, the opening pages of Moscovici and Nemeth, 1974), and these concerns contributed to the development of the research pro-gram.

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  Understanding Group Behavior

  Volume 1: Consensual Action By Small Groups; Volume 2: Small Group Processes and Interpersonal Relations

  • Erich H. Witte, James H. Davis(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  With a growing number of colleagues and collaborators, he has opened our eyes to a variety of new and paradoxical phenomena that seem to show that when it comes to social influence, there can be strength from weakness, thereby challenging the foundational assumptions of social psychology. The phrase minority influence has become pervasive in the attitude change literature, framing the way we talk and think about these fascinating questions and stimulating a recent outpouring of summaries, extensions, reviews, and critiques (e.g., Kruglanski & Mackie, 1990; Levine & Russo, 1987; Maass, West, & Cialdini, 1987; Mugny & Perez, 1991). Why is the Minority Influence Concept so Appealing? Although a number of empirical studies show minority influence effects, the results have often proved difficult to replicate, confusing, and/or interpretable in more conventional theoretical terms (Turner, 1991). I do not here review the provocative but controversial theoretical and empirical arguments for and against this concept, but merely cite three powerful (if not entirely legitimate) reasons why people may believe in minority influence. Wishful Thinking. Social scientists, European and American both, have a soft spot in their heart for minorities. In addition to a general tendency to root for the underdog, many of us are members of ethnic minorities and virtually all of us, as academic social scientists who live in a world that undervalues what we do and in a discipline that overvalues originality, are members of opinion minorities

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  Social Groups in Action and Interaction

  2nd Edition

  • Charles Stangor(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  To this point, our discussion of majority influence might make it seem that individuals always prefer to conform to the opinions of others. But the assumption that all social behavior is driven by goals of conformity is problematic. For one, there are clear cases in which a smaller number of individuals (a minority group) are able to influence the opinions or behaviors of a larger group of individuals (Gardikiotis, 2011; Moscovici, Mucchi-Faina, & Maass, 1994). Teachers are able to change the beliefs of their students, and political leaders are able to change the behavior of their followers. And when we look back on history, we find that it is the unusual, divergent, innovative minority groups or individuals, who, although frequently ridiculed at the time for their unusual ideas, end up being respected in the end for producing positive changes.

  Although conformity to majority opinions is essential to provide a smoothly working society, if individuals only conformed to others there could never be any new ideas or social change. It is popularly said that dissent “opens the mind” and research on minority influence has demostrated that the axiom is correct. When people are exposed to the opinions of people who express different viewpoints than they do they begin to search for information, consider more options, make better decisions and are more creative (Nemeth & Goncalo, 2010). Innovation in all areas of group process requires that minorities, whether they be leaders, popular group members, or those with the best ideas and the newest insights be able to successfully change group opinion (Bazarova, Walther, & McLeod, 2012; De Dreu, De Vries, Franssen, & Altink, 2000).

  Minority Influence in Action

  The French social psychologist Serge Moscovici was particularly interested in the situations in which minority influence might occur. In fact, he argued that all members of all groups are able (at least in some degree) to influence others, regardless of whether they are in the majority or the minority. To test whether minority group members could indeed produce influence, Moscovici, Lage, and Naffrechoux (1969) essentially created the reverse of Asch’s line perception study, such that there was now a minority of confederates in the group (two) and a majority of experimental participants (four). All six individuals viewed a series of slides depicting colors, supposedly as a study of color perception, and as in Asch’s research, each gave an opinion about the color of the slide out loud.

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  Towards Constructive Change in Aboriginal Communities

  A Social Psychology Perspective

  • Donald M. Taylor, Roxane de la Sablonnière(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • McGill-Queen's University Press

    (Publisher)

  Our intention is not only to appreciate the magnitude of the challenges but also to seek realistic and targeted solutions. Our solutions are targeted in that they are rooted in the specific social and psychological challenges discussed earlier. And, again, we need to emphasize that what we propose is a theoretical framework for social change, not the actual cultural content of that change.

  In the next three chapters we propose three interrelated tools for addressing the challenges confronting Aboriginal communities. In this chapter we discuss the social psychology of minority influence. We argue that there is a minority of Aboriginal people in each community, the 20 percent, who have the psychological resources to potentially reverse the current normative structure. Understanding the functioning of minority influence will provide us with the guiding principles for constructive social change. In Chapter 8 we examine “zero tolerance.” We argue that zero tolerance is a misunderstood policy and that, if applied correctly, it may provide a mechanism for changing entrenched destructive norms. In Chapter 9 we discuss a concrete community-based process that makes use of survey research. Because a survey research instrument can, under special circumstances, involve sampling every member of a community, and because there is the potential for in-depth feedback, we believe that, through its use, it is possible to instigate constructive, and indeed revolutionary, social change in very dysfunctional communities. In these three chapters, we argue that if we apply these interventions it is possible to reverse the current normative structure in Aboriginal communities.

  MINORITY INFLUENCE

  How do each of us, as individuals, know what to think, how to feel, and how to behave, or at least how we are supposed to think, feel, and behave? The physical environment offers few answers, except perhaps when to dress warmly, when to put on sunscreen, or when to avoid crossing a busy street. When it comes to important matters – our values, beliefs, and, indeed, our entire worldview – the only source of information is other people

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  Advances in Group Processes

  • Shane R. Thye, Edward J. Lawler(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Our project extends these effects by integrating status characteristics theory and minority influence theory. 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Minority Influence Theory/Conversion Theory Minority Influence Theory ( Nemeth, 2011 ) emerged as a reaction to the dominant view in social psychology that influence was unidirectional, ema-nating from the majority to the minority. In the earliest statements of the impact of minority views on the majority, Moscovici (1976, 1980) argued that the dominant perspective was flawed and inadequately represented 131 Minority Influence, Status, and the Generation of Novel Ideas group processes, especially with regard to social change. The notion that influence was necessarily a majority-to-minority process struck Moscovici as inconsistent with the historical realities of social change. Many major historical transitions in academic, political, and social realms began with the actions of a few who lacked significant power or social status. For example, Mosovici and Nemeth (1974) cite landmark changes incited by people like Galileo, Abraham Lincoln, Sigmund Freud, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr. resulted from a social influence process which opposes the “top-down” model. To capture this reversal of the dominant perspective on influence, Moscovici and Faucheux (1972) , and later, Moscovici (1980) developed a theory of conversion behavior. Conversion theory is the idea that consis-tent behavior by minorities to support their view incites attitude and per-ceptual changes from majority to minority positions.

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  The Science of Social Influence

  Advances and Future Progress

  • Anthony R. Pratkanis(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  At the level of small groups, we see similar tendencies. For instance, bringing in newcomers to an ad hoc work group changes the strat- egies the group uses, and thus their ultimate task performance (e.g., Choi & Levine, 2004). Underlying many of these and other changes we see in the ways group mem- bers think and behave is minority influence. Minority influence is the possible outcome of minority dissent, which occurs when a numerical minority faction in a group or society publicly advocates and pursues beliefs, attitudes, ideas, pro- cedures and policies that go against the “spirit of the times” and challenge the position or perspective assumed by the majority (De Dreu & De Vries, 1997, 2001). Note that minority dissent refers to deviations from the majority point of view, and not to deviations from the majority in terms of social (cultural, religious) or demographic (gender, ethnicity) characteristics. Thus, although cultural or demographic differences may correlate with differences in opinion and point of view, the focus here is on opinion minorities and not on social minorities. That minority dissent can be influential follows from the fact that groups do not linearly progress towards a stable and finite equilibrium. What remains is when, how, and why minorities within a group or society influence the majority’s way of thinking and doing. It is these and related questions that are covered in this chapter. As an outline of the things to come, I will first discuss the nature and origins of minority influence: Why is it that some people do not comply with the majority perspective and instead go against the spirit of the times, and under what condi- tions is it more likely that minority influence emerges and comes into existence? In the second part of the chapter I will review several models, and their evidence, about the influence of minority statements on individual beliefs and attitudes.

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  Encyclopedia of Social Psychology

  • Roy F. Baumeister, Kathleen D. Vohs, Roy Baumeister, Kathleen D. Vohs(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  For instance, a particularly powerful majority group might be extremely resistant to the minority view no matter how strong the minor-ity case might be. However, the minority may still influence the majority through indirect routes. For instance, minority members may continuously remind the majority of the importance or implications of the 580 ——— Minority Social Influence group’s task or decision, which may encourage members of the majority to think more critically about their views or delay a final decision until they seek more information. If majority members are willing to collect more information, they may be more willing to consider the details of the minority’s viewpoint. Another important factor in minority social influ-ence is the relationship between the minority and majority in the group at the time that a disagree-ment occurs. If the members of the minority have established relationships or shared experiences with members of the majority, then attempts at minority influence may be more successful. For example, the minority members might have agreed with majority members in previous tasks or decisions. As a result, majority members might be more welcoming of an opposing view from minority members who have established a positive relationship with the majority in the past. Outcomes of Minority Influence In general, minority social influence may differ from majority influence in both the degree and kind of out-comes of their strategies. The social influence that is elicited by a minority group is usually more private and indirect than is influence by a majority group. In addition, the effects of minority influence may not appear immediately. However, minority influence may change majority group members’ private beliefs, which can lead to changes in outward behavior later. Minority social influence also may alter the group’s general view on issues that are indirectly related to the task or decision at hand.

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  Group Processes

  • John M. Levine(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Another personal goal is the desire to be liked and accepted by the majority. Because minority members may fear that complete agreement with the majority will be perceived as sycophancy, they may use compromise, or partial conformity, to ingratiate themselves with the majority (Schlenker, 1980). Finally, minority members may be less concerned about how the majority views them than about how they view themselves. In particular, minority members’ desire to feel distinctive or unique may cause them to nonconform in one way or another (Hornsey & Jetten, 2004 ; Imhoff & Erb, 2009). Challenging the Status Quo: Minority Influence For all its insights and dramatic demonstrations of the human capacity to conform, the dependence approach to social influence has limited explanatory power. This is because it cannot account for the persistent diversity of opinions within society or for their sometimes dramatic evolution from marginality to orthodoxy. Clearly, these phenomena are difficult, if not impossible, to explain if minorities are always dependent on majorities for information about reality and social acceptance. The first social psychologist to identify the limited scope of the dependence approach for understanding social influence was Serge Moscovici (see Moscovici & Faucheux, 1972). Moscovici’s genius was in recognizing that people holding a minority position in a group are not always silenced by pressure to conform but instead sometimes produce social change, or innovation. To engender innovation, according to Moscovici, minority dissent must entail more than passive resistance to prevailing group norms. It must include a well-articulated alternative viewpoint that is actively promoted through engagement and conflict with the majority

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  Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology

  Volume Two

  • Paul A M Van Lange, Arie W Kruglanski, E Tory Higgins, Paul A M Van Lange, Arie W Kruglanski, E Tory Higgins, Author(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  This was a bit contrary to graduate training where we complicated ideas, added variables and studied contingen-cies. However, in reflecting back on my early work on this issue, I had both a preference for simple (hopefully elegant) research designs and fundamentally believed that it is clarity, consistency and even simplicity that stimulates thought. The hope was that others would be stimulated to extend the thinking, to correct it, to elaborate on it and to show its boundary conditions, but the guiding theme of the value of dissent for divergent thought and clarity of position would remain. And we would welcome debate, for I was convinced that thought is stimulated by interaction, by discussion and, yes, even argument. IMPACT AND APPLICATION Minority influence and social psychology A good deal of research developed the nature of cognitive activity in the realm of attitude change. Moscovici’s (1980) conversion theory, for example, hypothesised quite dif-ferent cognitive processes in response to a majority versus a minority source. The former created a comparison process where people identified with the majority and tried to ‘fit in with their opinions or judgments’. Thus they often adopted the majority position – at least publicly – without scrutiny of the message. The latter created a conversion process – assuming the minority was consistent and confident – whereby people scrutinised the message. They wanted ‘to see what the minority saw, to understand what it under-stood’ (Moscovici, 1980: 215). This change, when it occurred, was deeper and longer lasting. Competing theories arose (Mackie, 1987) which recognised that majorities also induced cognitive activity though, again, it was addressed to processing of the message and HANDBOOK OF THEORIES OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 370 attitude change.

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  Majority and Minority Influence

  Societal Meaning and Cognitive Elaboration

  • Stamos Papastamou, Antonis Gardikiotis, Gerasimos Prodromitis(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  We would like to recall here that according to Lemaine the social comparison process, which as a rule leads to social consensus and uniformity (Festinger, 1954), under certain circumstances may, conversely lead to social differentiation and social change: when, that is, the social subject under comparison is deficient in social status, socio-psychological profile and/or available resources with regard to the others, in order to retain its psychosocial identity in a first phase, it endeavours to be rendered incomparable thereby creating some new criterion of comparison while it then tries to impose this new criterion as the dominant one, which would enhance its general social standing. The explanatory value of this process when applied in the context of the scientific community is, we think, obvious. Scientific innovation and the theoretical and methodological leaps and bounds accompanying it no longer derive from the purely epistemological since it is subject to the uncertain but inevitable arrival of new ‘enlightened minds’. It is defined to a great extent by the correlation of forces governing the relations between the members of a same scientific community or between different scientific communities and which can change under the influence of a series of complex socio-psychological processes like the one we have just described. In this sense, the specific perspective introduces indirectly but clearly an additional element which opens the way to a new view of the emergence of a new epistemological paradigm, even to the simple change in methodological and theoretical orientation. A view that takes into account the socio-psychological dynamics of the scientific community which it includes in the broader context of social influence processes, given that, as is well known, social comparison – in its various variations – constitutes an integral part of it.

  The questions, therefore, that we shall try to answer through the examination of majority and minority influence, come from the following four groups of research:

  a)   ‘classic’ research on social conformity (see by way of indication Asch, 1951, 1956; Kelman, 1958) and the ‘heterodox’ experiments conducted by Moscovici and his associates on innovation (see by way of explanation Moscovici, 1976b, 1980, 1985; Mugny, 1982; Mugny & Pérez, 1991; Nemeth, 1986; Nemeth & Kwan, 1987; Nemeth & Wachtler, 1983; Papastamou, 1983, 1986; Papastamou & Mugny, 1990; Pérez & Mugny, 1996);

  b)   research leaning towards dispute of the distinctiveness of the minority influence processes (see by way of indication Doms & Van Avermaet, 1980; Maass & Clark III, 1983, 1984; Latané, 1981; Wolf & Latané, 1983; Trost, Maass & Kenrick, 1992);

  p.12

  c)   research that introduces the study of minority and majority influence methods and theoretical thinking that are the nature of research into persuasion phenomena (see by way of indication De Dreu & De Vries, 1993; Martin & Hewstone, 2003, 2001, 2008; Bohner, Frank & Erb, 1998);

  d)   research

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  Group Dynamics

  • Donelson Forsyth(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  However, social influence also flows from the individual to the group. If the group is to meet new challenges and improve over time, it must recognize and accept ideas that conflict with the status quo. In Twelve Angry Men , the lone minority held his ground, offered reasons for his views, and he pre-vailed. Whereas majority influence increases the consensus within the group, minority influence sustains individuality and innovation. In this chapter, we consider the nature of this give-and-take between majorities and minorities and the implications of this influence process for understanding how juries make their decisions (Levine & Prislin, 2013; Levine & Tindale, 2015). 7 -1 M A J O R I T Y I N F L U E N C E : T H E P O W E R O F T H E M A N Y Groups offer their members many advantages over a solitary existence, but these advantages come at a cost. The jurors sought to influence the other jur-ors, but all the while the jury was influencing them: It swayed their judgments, favored one interpreta-tion of reality over another, and encouraged certain behaviors while discouraging others. When the group first polled the members, several were uncer-tain but they voted guilty to go along with others. They had to make a choice between alternatives, and they chose the alternative favored by the majority of the others even though that choice did not coincide with their own personal preferences. They gave more weight to social information — the majority ’ s opinion — than they gave to personal preferences. They displayed conformity (Claidière & Whiten, 2012). 7-1a Conformity and Independence When do people conform? Muzafer Sherif verified that group members modify their judgments so that they match those of others in their groups (1936; see chapter 6). Theodore Newcomb ’ s study of Benning-ton students showed that members of a group will gradually take as their own the group ’ s position on political and social issues (1943; see chapter 2).

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  Encyclopedia of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations

  • John M Levine, Michael A. Hogg, John M. Levine, Michael Hogg(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  approach to social influence, which equated influence with confor-mity. He rejected the assumption underlying much of U.S. research at the time that influence can be reduced to change that individuals or minorities undergo under pressure from a group. Moscovici argued that influence also included change in the opposite direction. From innovators in science to revolutionaries in politics, history abounds with examples of minorities that prevailed in their opposition to a majority. According to Moscovici’s “genetic” model of minority influence, numerical minorities create conflict within a group at two levels: At the cogni-tive level, they question the established (majority) worldview; at the social level, they threaten inter-personal relationships. Initially, people try to resolve the conflict by attributing the minority position to undesirable psychological characteris-tics (e.g., deviance, insanity, naïveté). However, if the minority continues to advocate its position consistently, conveying commitment and certainty, its behavioral style may convince the majority to reconsider its initial reaction and adopt the minor-ity position as a valid alternative. In a revision of his initial model, Moscovici placed less emphasis on behavioral style and 581 Moscovici, Serge elaborated on the ways that people resolve con-flict caused by the dissenting minority. According to his conflict theory, the dissenting minority trig-gers a validation process through which people try to understand the minority position and examine their own position. This thorough examination of the minority position may cause people to con-vert. However, to avoid being associated with a minority, they are likely to keep their conversion private. In contrast, when exposed to majority influence, people are primarily concerned with potentially negative consequences of their devia-tion from the majority. They engage in the com-parison process, through which they try to fit in with the majority.

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