0000000000116257
AUTHOR
Gabriel Mugny
Internalization of conflict and attitude change
In a 2 × 2 × 2 design, eighty smokers were exposed to an anti-smoking appeal attributed either to an expert source (superior status) or a minority source (inferior status). Subjects were either allowed or not to smoke during the experiment. In addition subjects had to memorize part of the appeal and a recall task either followed after reading the appeal (completed task) or not (uncompleted task). The results show that the expert source produces more attitude change than the minority when the tension induced by the source is weakened (either by the opportunity to smoke or task completion). In contrast the minority has more impact when subjects are not able to smoke or when the task is not co…
Indirect majority and minority influence: An exploratory study
In a 2 × 2 design, 85 subjects were asked to estimate the size of angles (direct influence) that were either 90 or 85°, after being confronted with incorrect judgements of a majority (88 per cent) or a minority (12 per cent) of people estimating the angles at 50°. Additionally, pre- and post-test measures were used to establish indirect influence on subjects' judgements pertaining to acute angles (i.e. on the estimation of the length of lines constituting the angles, and on the imaginary weight of figures represented by these angles). Overall, little direct influence is observed. This may partly be due to the introduction of a denial of the credibility of the source in all conditions. In fa…
Procesos sociocognitivos de la influencia minoritaria
ResumenSe presenta un experimento (plan 2x2x2; N = 180) en el que se estudia la influencia directa e indirecta de una minoria en funcion: a) del grado de conflicto inducido por la retorica minoritaria; b) de si los jucicios mayoritarios son independientes o interdependientes; c) de las implicaciones altas o bajas del cambio de actitudes. Los resultados muestran que, como previsto por el modelo de la disociacion de la comparacion y de la validacion, cuando los juicios son efectuados de modo independiente, la influencia aumenta en funcion directa del conflicto inducido por la retorica minoritaria.Esta influencia se inhibe a nivel directo y se desplaza hacia un nivel indirecto en la condicione…
Majority and minority influence, task representation and inductive reasoning
One hundred and fifty-five participants had to solve a set of 2–4–6 like reasoning problems (Wason, 1960), in which they were told which hypothesis a majority (or a minority) proposed, as well as which example was used for the test. In a 2 × 2 design, participants were also told that the problems allowed either one single correct answer or several possible answers. Results show that, when the source is a majority and the problem allows one single answer, most participants adopt the source's hypothesis and use confirmatory testing. On the contrary, it is when the source is a minority and the problem allows several answers that most participants give alternative hypotheses and use disconfirma…
‘Zeitgeist’and minority influence—where is the causality: A comment on Clark (1990)
Does the mood of the time (Zeitgeist) facilitate the influence minorities are able to exercise, or is it itself a direct product of minority influence ? It is argued, from a social psychological definition of the minority-majority relation, that the former interpretation fails to explain many of the observed effects and in particular the conversion effect. A model is offered that is consistent with the second interpretation.
Majority and minority influence in inductive reasoning: A preliminary study
Ninety-three students were exposed to majority and minority influence in an inductive reasoning task. The former induced convergent thinking processes, though its effects were not reducible to mere compliance. The latter activated more divergent constructive processes, supporting the predictions of Conversion Theory.
When a compliance without pressure strategy fails due to a minority dissenter: A case of “behavioral conversion”
While a strategy of compliance without pressure (Joule, 1987) had the effect of inducing almost all of a group of smoking subjects to stop smoking first for 18 hours then for 3 days, simply observing someone (an accomplice) break his or her own initial agreement to abstain from smoking for 18 hours was enough to bring about a substantial reduction in the willingness of other subjects to later abstain for 3 days. However, subjects did not follow the lead of the accomplice immediately, and persisted in their agreement to abstain for 18 hours. This pattern of indirect, but not direct influence, suggests that there may be a type of minority influence at work here that represents a sort of behav…
Représentations sociales et influence sociale
Puisque le contenu et la structure des representations sociales sont determines par des communications, leur lien avec l'etude de l'influence sociale devrait eclairer la comprehension des dynamiques representationnelles. Trois axes de recherche sont presentes. Dans la tradition des etudes sur l'influence sociale, le premier montre qu'une source majoritaire produit une influence manifeste et la minorite une influence plus latente. Le deuxieme confirme a propos d'une source experte que les sources de haut statut social encourent le risque d'une influence plutot superficielle et montre que ces obstacles au changement proviennent d'enjeux identitaires. Le troisieme examine l'influence reciproqu…
Independence and interdependence of group judgments: Xenophobia and minority influence
A first experiment examined the effects of two methods of dividing resources between Swiss nationals and foreign residents in a study involving 118 subjects. Subjects gave judgments involving either interdependent allocation (resources allocated to the outgroup cannot be allocated to the ingroup) or independent allocation. The results indicated that the socio-cognitive functioning preferred by subjects varies as a function of their view of outsiders. Interdependence of judgments was more characteristic of the most xenophobic subjects, whereas the least xenophobic were more likely to reason in terms of independence. On the other hand, intermediate subjects (those who were clearly neither for…