Perspectives on Minority Influence

How does a minority exert influence on a majority? Traditionally social psychologists have characterised influence as a process leading to conformity - the minority coming to accept the view of the majority. For the contributors to this volume, working in a society where the reverse process is frequently exemplified - a society characterised by change and innovation - such an approach is no longer tenable. They believe that only by examining social processes also in terms of minority influence can the paradox be resolved. The volume is organised into two broadly based but interconnected parts. Part I analyses the process of influence itself, while Part II sets it within the context of groups. The influence of minorities is thus located within the cognitive and social field in which interaction between minorities and majorities occurs. The original and dynamic research paradigms presented here and the theoretical and empirical results that are reported offer alternative insights not only into the phenomenon of influence per se, but also into such classical notions as the group , deviance and convergence. Contents
Contributors
Preface Serge Moscovici
Part I. The Process of Minority Influence: Introduction Gabriel Mugny
1. Innovation and minority influence Serge Moscovici
2. Social support and minority influence: the innovation effect reconsidered Machteld Doms and Eddy Van Avermaet
3. Compromising public influence for private change Charlan Nemeth
4. Conflict and conversion Bernard Personnaz and Michel Guillon
5. Rigidity and minority influence: the influence of the social in social influence Stamos Papastamou and Gabriel Mugny
Part II. Minority Influence in Groups: Introduction Eddy Van Avermaet
6. Innovation and socialisation in small groups John M. Levine and Richard L. Moreland
7. When and how the minority prevails Harold B. Gerard
8. The paradox of orthodox minorities: when orthodoxy infallibly fails Jean-Pierre Deconchy
9. Conformity, innovation and the psychosocial law Sharon Wolf and Bibb Latan
1. Infra-group, intra-group and inter-group: construing levels of organisation in social influence Vernon L. Allen
References
Subject index
Author index.