The leniency contract and persistence of majority and minority influence.

The leniency contract (E. M. Alvaro & W. D. Crano, 1997) explicates a maxim of social influence: Majorities induce public, temporary change, whereas minority influence is indirect and persistent. The contract holds that minority messages are elaborated without derogation or counterargument; in recompense, direct change is repudiated. This response pattern unbalances the constellation of beliefs containing the critical attitude. It is stabilized by modifying related beliefs. These propositions were tested by uncovering links among a set of attitudes and developing persuasive messages on 1 of them. The messages were attributed to majority or in-group minority sources. Strong messages fostered persistent focal attitude change. When attributed to a minority, strong messages induced indirect attitude change, which was associated with delayed focal change. For the majority source, positivity of cognitive responses was related to focal change; for the minority, it was related to indirect change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asymmetric influence in mock jury deliberation: Jurors' bias for leniency.

Investigators have frequently noted a leniency bias in mock jury research, in which deliberation appears to induce greater leniency in criminal mock jurors. One manifestation of this bias, the asymmetry effect, suggests that proacquittal factions are more influential than proconviction factions of comparable size. A meta-analysis indicated that these asymmetry effects are reliable across a variety of experimental contexts. Exp I examined the possibility that the leniency bias is restricted to the typical college-student subject population. The decisions of college-student and community mock jurors in groups beginning deliberation with equal faction sizes (viz., 2:2) were compared. The magnitude of the asymmetry effect did not differ between the two populations. In Exp II, Ss received either reasonable-doubt or preponderance-of-evidence instructions. After providing initial verdict preferences, some Ss deliberated in groups composed with an initial 2:2 split, whereas other Ss privately generated arguments for each verdict option. A significant asymmetry was found for groups in the reasonable-doubt condition, but group verdicts were symmetrical under the preponderance-of-evidence instructions. Shifts toward leniency in individual verdict preferences occurred for group members, but not for subjects who performed the argument-generation task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of source expertise and physical distance on minority influence.

The treatment of source strength and immediacy distinguishes social impact theory from other theories of social influence. The present study examined the effects of source expertise (e.g., strength) and physical distance (i.e., immediacy) on minority influence. Groups (N?=?40), consisting of 2 naive research participants and 1 confederate who argued for a minority position, provided ratings for 40 hypothetical graduate school applicants. The confederate was seated either 4 ft (1.2192 m; high immediacy) or 10 ft (3.048 m; low immediacy) from the other group members and presented himself as either a senior who had recently applied to several graduate programs (high strength) or as a freshman (low strength). The confederate exerted more influence in the high-strength condition than in the low-strength condition, but only when immediacy was low. The implications of these findings for social impact theory and for future research and practice are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of majority defection and multiple minority sources on minority influence.

A study using the Twelve Angry Men (R. Rose, 1954) paradigm was used to investigate the impact of jury verdicts and numerical minority argumentation on minority influence. Participants were more influenced by the minority when they were given information about majority members defecting to the minority position than when they were not. Although there were no differences among the experimental conditions after the minority's 1st and 2nd arguments, more minority influence occurred when 2 other jurors separately presented the 3rd and 4th minority arguments than when the initial, lone minority singularly presented all of the arguments. The superiority of multiple-source minority argumentation was attributed to multiple sources being viewed as independent or as representing different perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential contributions of majority and minority influence.

Contends that in most studies comparing majority and minority influence, there is an emphasis on influence in the sense of prevailing. Within this context, evidence exists that majorities exert more public influence and that minority influence, when it occurs, tends to operate primarily at the latent level. In the present formulation, it is proposed that the differences between majority and minority influence are more extensive once influence is considered in a broader context and that exposure to persistent minority views fosters greater thought about the issue. Furthermore, this thought tends to be divergent rather than convergent, so that people tend to be better decision makers because they attend to more aspects of the situation and reexamine premises. By contrast, it is proposed that exposure to persistent majority views fosters convergent thinking and leads to an unreflective acceptance of the majority position. Three studies by the author (1976) and by the author and J. Kwan (1985) that directly tested some of the propositions are reviewed, and the formulation is linked to available knowledge in the areas of social cognition, creativity, and problem solving both at the individual and group levels. (64 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hidden impact of minorities: Fifteen years of minority influence research.

Evaluates minority influence literature since the original formulation of the theory by S. Moscovici (1969). Empirical or design problems include the exclusive use of the minimal group paradigm, inconsistent operationalizations of key concepts, the omission of process-oriented methodologies, and inadequate treatment of mediating variables and group effects. Theoretical problems arise from the overall scarcity of theoretical integrations. The psychological processes underlying the zeitgeist phenomenon continue to elude investigators. Potential applications of the theory to actual minority groups have been neglected. The relation between minority influence and conformity needs to be further explored; it is suggested that people tend to yield to the majority in public while accepting the position of the minority in private. (97 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Majority and minority influence: Source-position imbalance as a determinant of message scrutiny.

Two experiments addressed the issue of whether endorsement of a position by a numerical majority or a minority leads to greater scrutiny of the information presented in a persuasive message. In Exp 1, a counterattitudinal position was endorsed by a majority or a minority and was supported by strong or weak arguments. Argument quality had a larger impact on attitudes with majority than with minority endorsement. In Exp 2, a proattitudinal or a counterattitudinal message was endorsed by a majority or a minority and was supported by strong or weak arguments. When the source and message position were unexpected (i.e., majority-counter and minority-pro messages), argument quality had a larger impact on attitudes than when the source and message position were expected (i.e., majority-pro and minority-counter messages). Thus, either majority or minority endorsement can enhance message scrutiny if the source-position pairing is surprising. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Indirect influence on modality on direct memory for words and their modality: Closed-head-injured and control participants.

Twenty closed-head-injured (CHI) patients and 28 control participants were tested on recall and recognition of words. In addition, memory for modality (i.e., visual vs. auditory) of word presentation was measured directly (i.e., recognition) and indirectly (i.e., by its influence on word and modality recognition). As predicted, the CHI patients were impaired relative to controls on all of the direct memory tasks; that is, word recall, word recognition, and modality judgment. However, the CHI and control groups did not differ significantly on the magnitude of the modality effect (i.e., facilitation due to correspondence of modality in learning and test). The findings are interpreted in the theoretical framework that distinguishes between item (i.e., words) and source (i.e., modality) memory and between direct and indirect measures of memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An information-processing approach to leniency in performance judgments.

The traditional rendering-bias explanation of leniency in performance judgments was postulated to be incomplete. To demonstrate this insufficiency, an encoding-bias model of leniency was proposed, and hypotheses generated from both models were tested in a laboratory experiment. 60 students viewed a videotape of a lecture, and their expectations of providing face-to-face feedback to the instructor were manipulated preobservation, postobservation, or not at all. Dependent variables included measures of encoding, private appraisals, retrieval, and public appraisals. As expected, results supported both explanations of leniency. However, the pattern of results suggests that a retrieval bias may also contribute to leniency in performance judgments. A more complex view of leniency effects is proposed on the basis of principles of motivated cognitive processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conscientiousness and agreeableness as predictors of rating leniency.

The authors studied the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and rating elevation among 111 students making peer evaluations. It was hypothesized that Conscientiousness (C) scores would be negatively correlated with rating level and that Agreeableness (A) scores would be positively correlated with rating level. We further predicted that individuals who were low on C and high on A would produce the most elevated ratings. As predicted, A scores were positively related to rating level (33, p ?     

Effect of number of majority defectors on minority influence.

Two experiments using the Twelve Angry Men (R. Rose, 1954) paradigm were conducted to investigate the effect of the number of majority defectors on the minority. Participants were more influenced by the minority when it acquired majority defectors than when it did not, and the number of majority defectors made a difference. In both experiments, the minority's influence progressively increased from 1 to 2 defectors until the 3rd defector, at which point a ceiling of influence was reached. The results also showed that when the minority could initially acquire only a single defector it had to acquire an additional 5 majority defectors to significantly increase its effectiveness. These results are discussed in the context of B. Latané and S. Wolfe's (1981) social impact theory and S. Tanford and S. Penrod's (1984) social influence model. Implications for group psychotherapy are mentioned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of majority versus minority source status on persuasion: A self-validation analysis.

The present research proposes that sources in the numerical majority (vs. minority) can affect persuasion by influencing the confidence with which people hold their thoughts in response to the persuasive message. Participants received a persuasive message composed of either strong or weak arguments that was presented by a majority or a minority source. Consistent with the self-validation hypothesis, we predicted and found that the majority (vs. minority) status of the source increased the confidence with which recipients held their thoughts. As a consequence, majority (vs. minority) sources increased argument quality effects in persuasion when source status information followed message processing (Experiment 1). In contrast, when the information regarding source status preceded (rather than followed) the persuasive message, it validated the perception of the position advocated, reducing message processing. As a consequence of having more confidence in the position advocated before receiving the message, majority (vs. minority) sources reduced argument quality effects in persuasion (Experiment 2). Finally, Experiment 3 isolated the timing of the source status manipulation, revealing that sources in the numerical majority (vs. minority) can increase or decrease persuasion to strong arguments depending on whether source status is introduced before or after processing the message. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual expectations for group decision processes: Evidence for overestimation of majority influence.

Individuals experience numerous group decision situations during their lives. As a result, they may develop accurate expectations of the social processes and effects of context on group decision situations. Four decision-making situations were constructed that were expected to elicit different group decision processes. Individuals were presented with these hypothetical scenarios in which group size and the preferences of group members varied systematically. Participants’ expectations were elicited from their predictions regarding which alternative the group would choose on the basis of the information presented. The comparison of these judgments with the predicted decision distributions derived from models of group decision making showed that participants had a general sensitivity to changes in contexts, but that they overestimated the effect of the majority opinion on the final decisions. Individuals may have general notions of how groups make decisions but are less sensitive to the subtleties involved in the process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Majority and minority influence in group negotiation: The moderating effects of social motivation and decision rules.

In organizational groups, often a majority has aligned preferences that oppose those of a minority. Although such situations may give rise to majority coalitions that exclude the minority or to minorities blocking unfavorable agreements, structural and motivational factors may stimulate groups to engage in integrative negotiation, leading to collectively beneficial agreements. An experiment with 97 3-person groups was designed to test hypotheses about the interactions among decision rule, the majority's social motivation, and the minority's social motivation. Results showed that under unanimity rule, minority members block decisions, thus harming the group, but only when the minority has proself motivation. Under majority rule, majority members coalesce at the minority's expense, but only when the majority has a proself motivation. Implications for negotiation research and group decision making are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social Influence Model: A formal integration of research on majority and minority influence processes.

Presents a formal model of social influence that integrates majority and minority influence processes within a single theoretical framework and uses computer simulations to model the group influence process. The Social Influence Model (SIM) predicts that as a faction increases in size, its impact increases and vice versa. The performance of the SIM is assessed by comparison with empirical findings from a meta-analysis of research on conformity, minority influence, and deviate rejection. The results indicate that influence is predominantly a function of the number of targets and sources of influence, both of which are incorporated into a nonlinear growth function that accurately predicts the amount of influence obtained in social influence studies. The consistency of the influence source was also an important predictor of influence; task type, group type, and response mode affected influence to a lesser degree. (58 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social influence by group members with minority opinions: A comparison of Hollander and Moscovici.

In Exp I (144 male undergraduates), 4-person groups discussed 3 opinion issues that were selected to permit a confederate (C) to argue for the minority position. In the strategy proposed by E. H. Hollander (see record 1959-08073-001), the C argued the minority position only on the last issue, whereas in the strategy proposed by S. Moscovici and C. Faucheux (1972), the C argued it on every issue. Groups also worked a difficult math puzzle, by which the C showed or did not show competency by solving or not solving the problem. Exp II followed the same procedure except that both males and females were tested; groups contained 6 members with 2 Cs, and Cs worked 2 word problems to show competence. For males, results across both experiments showed that Hollander's model produced significantly greater influence than Moscovici's model and showed a pattern of greatest influence under conditions of high competence. In contrast, results for females showed the Moscovici and Hollander strategies to be equally effective, regardless of competence. Overall, female groups were influenced less than male groups, and both models showed significant influence relative to baseline control Ss. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence evaluation in complex decision making.

Investigated the role of representation of evidence in the decision processes of 26 21–73 yr old experienced jurors to test a 3-stage story model of juror decision making. The 3 stages are evidence evaluation through story construction, decision alternative representation (verdict category establishment for the juror task), and story classification (selecting the verdict category that best fits the story based on the evidence). Ss made individual decisions on the verdicts for a filmed murder trial. Extensive interviews were conducted to determine Ss' cognitive representations of the evidence in the case, the verdict categories presented in the trial judge's instructions, and the procedures they were to follow according to law to reach a verdict. Results indicate, as hypothesized, that the trial evidence was represented in a story form. Differences among Ss in cognitive representations of evidence were correlated with their verdicts, although other aspects of the decision process (verdict category representations, application of the standard of proof procedural instruction) were not. It is concluded that adequate theories of decision making must emphasize cognitive aspects of performance, such as the representation of evidence. (64 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-definition, defensive processing, and influence: The normative impact of majority and minority groups.

Past research has found that recipients agree with majority group positions and resist minority group positions on direct measures of influence. The authors suggest that these attitude shifts reflect normative pressures to align with valued majorities and to differentiate from derogated minorities. In support of this idea, participants who considered a majority group relevant to their own self-definitions (but not those who judged it irrelevant), on learning that the group held a counterattitudinal position, shifted their attitudes to agree with the source. In a second study, recipients who judged a minority group (negatively) self-relevant, on learning that the group held a similar attitude to their own, shifted their attitudes to diverge from the source. These shifts in attitudes were based on participants' interpretations of the attitude issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collective induction: Group performance, social combination processes, and mutual majority and minority influence.

To relate group performance, social combination processes, and majority (MJ) and minority (MN) influence yoked 4-person MJ and 2-person MN cooperative groups induced the same rule at the same pace. There were 4 conditions of information exchange between the MJ and MN on each trial: exchange both hypotheses and evidence, exchange hypotheses only, exchange evidence only, or exchange neither. Results supported 5 conclusions: (1) Exchange of evidence improved the performance of both the MJ and MN relatively more than did exchange of hypotheses. (2) The MJ performed better than the MN. (3) The MJ and MN followed similar strategies, differing only quantitatively as a function of faction size. (4) The social combination processes for 4-person MJ groups were orderly, were consistent with theory (the position of the inductive task on the intellective-judgmental continuum and four conditions of demonstrability), replicated previous research, and predicted analogous social combination processes in 2-person MN groups. (5) There was mutual MJ and MN influence by exchange of evidence, no influence by exchange of hypotheses, and relatively more MJ influence on the MN than MN influence on the MJ. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)