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The Social Dimension European Developments in Social Psychology Edited by Henri Tajfel Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511759154 Online ISBN: 9780511759154 Hardback ISBN: 9780521239783 Paperback ISBN: 9780521283878
Chapter 24 - The influence of minorities: ten years later pp. 498-517 Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511759154.007 Cambridge University Press
24* The influence of minorities: ten years later1

GABRIEL MUGNY
i. Two models of social influence An individual often modifies his or her behaviour, assertions, deeply held beliefs, or even perceptions under social pressure from one or more other people. This intriguing phenomenon has its complementary aspect in the existence of social uniformities (in social groups or categories), which are at times deeply rooted in error. A scientific label, 'social influence', has been applied to these phenomena, methods - mostly experimental - were devised to study them, and theories were constructed for their interpretation. The designation of influence as ' social' implies that theories are required which would be able to encompass the social - or more exactly, societal dimensions in which social influence finds its roots. But this has not been the case (Mugny & Doise 1979). Little attention was paid to the 'social' in 'social influence' in the formulation of theories, which tended to be confined to intra-psychic mechanisms operating in abstract inter-individual encounters - abstract in the sense that no interest was shown in the social contexts (such as groups, categories or norms) by which these encounters are fashioned and which endow them with their significance. The 'social' is conspicuously absent in these explanations, almost as if it were too obvious to be considered (as is also the case in the explanation of other phenomena in social psychology; cf. Doise 1980). The reason seems to be that despite their diversity, and also their divergence, most of these explanations are based on the same conception of society, a conception which Moscovici (1976) referred to as the functionalist model (an exhaustive review of these various tendencies can be found in de Montmollin 1977). In the functionalist perspective, social systems are considered as taken for granted, once and for all, independently of their evolution or history.
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This chapter was translated from the French by Henri Tajfel.
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The influence of minorities
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Individuals and groups (or social categories) are assigned to social positions which are as immutable as the norms to which an individual must adapt by conforming to them. In this full acceptance of norms deviance is defined as a dysfunction. Consequently social influence fulfils a function which is essential and also unitary, despite the diversity of the social practices which are associated with it: this is to exercise social control, to ensure for the system its equilibrium, stability, homogeneity and permanence. Since the social system is assumed to remain stable, the locus of variability is sought in individuals and inter-individual encounters. This conception may well be at the origin of the tendency in social psychological theorizing to locate the kernel of its explanations at the level of the individual and of relations between individuals. In consequence, it becomes theoretically extremely difficult to envisage minority influence in terms of its relevance to the diffusion of innovations. Another reason for this theoretical difficulty is that the social positions occupied by social agents are seen as remaining stable. This is translated into the notion of dependence which encompasses most of the independent variables considered by the functionalist trend of research. Dependence expresses the nature and variety of resources (such as numbers of individuals, capacity to control reinforcement or punishment, competence, credibility, etc.) which are assigned to the various social positions. The most influential individuals or groups are those who have at their disposal, in any given situation, the maximum of the resources which happen to be relevant. It is they who have higher status, who are competent or who are in the majority (to take the most common examples), and thus social influence defined in this way coincides with - and is reduced to - the exercise of one or another form of power. The minorities which are deprived of all these resources are conceived in the model as no more than targets of influence. It could even be said that they are the targets par excellence, since it is the specialized role of social control to 'deal' with deviance. They can never be a source of influence, with the possible exception of situations when they can contribute to the locomotion of a group which would otherwise be impeded by conformity (Kelley & Shapiro 1954). But can they still be considered in such situations as ' minorities' ? It was not possible to get out of this blind alley by using piecemeal theoretical adjustments, even when they were as sophisticated as Hollander's (i960) theory of 'idiosyncratic credit', which attempted to account for innovations through a dual sequential process entirely based on conformity. One of the principal merits of Moscovici's (1976) argument was that it contributed to the elucidation of the common theoretical presuppositions underlying the' surface' divergences of the various theories of social influence.
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This argument pinpointed the social logic which they all shared. It presented a different conception, able to encompass social phenomena such as minority influence, which were previously ignored, while at the same time it integrated and presented in a new light the traditional problem of the processes which ensure and preserve social uniformity. In the interactionist model proposed by Moscovici, social systems are not conceived as 'absolute' givens, but are seen as historical outcomes of confrontations of social agents in conflict, and of ways in which these conflicts are negotiated. All social exchange (particularly so when it involves influence) implies a 'reciprocity', a mutual process in which social agents act upon each other, above and beyond their differences in status and resources. Social uniformities are transitional and momentary; they are no more than one stage in a continual process of social change. The survival of a system is, in this view, not due to its immobility but to its capacity of transforming itself. Norms can become out-of-date as a result of negotiations which evolve between social agents, such as individuals, groups or social categories. Deviance, which appeared as a dysfunction in the functionalist model, can contribute (in conditions to be discussed later in this chapter) to the shaping of social transformations, since it can function as an agent of innovation (see Lemaine 1974, and Chapter 17 in this book) and of diffusion of innovation. It is important to make a distinction at this point between the passive form of deviance, which consists of transgressing norms without any attempt at questioning their validity, and the active form which is adopted by some minorities. This chapter will be mainly concerned with the study of the processes through which active minorities manage to upset the equilibrium of an established system, to shake up norms and power previously considered as legitimate, and even to substitute for the old social order a new one from which they would not be excluded. This distinction between passive deviants and active minorities is well exemplified in the study of the ' dissidence of a single individual' (dissidence d'un seul) - namely, that of Solzhenitsyn - to which Moscovici (1979) devoted the appendix of the French version of his book, published in English in 1976. The profound change of perspectives brought about by the interactionist model had a marked effect on the nature of the variables considered in the study of social influence, and particularly of minority influence. As mentioned earlier, the research based on the functionalist model focused its explanations on variables which had to do with dependence, with the respective positions occupied by social agents and the differences in resources associated with these positions. In contrast, the studies deriving from the new model centred upon the effectiveness of the behaviour of social agents in the creation and negotiation of conflicts.
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The early set of these studies, which were all experimental, as were those which followed them (without thereby prejudicing the possible fruitfulness and validity of other approaches), was conducted by Faucheux & Moscovici (1967) and by Moscovici, Lage & Naffrechoux (1969). Their aim was to show the effectiveness of minority influence achieved through the use of consistency and of a certain rhetoric of minority behaviour. In 1972 there followed the publication of a chapter by Moscovici & Faucheux in the series of volumes edited by Berkowitz. This marked the point at which the need to reconsider the phenomenon of influence was acknowledged, but not necessarily its problematic character. There were some disagreements with the new approach (e.g. Cramer 1975; Kelvin 1979; Levine 1980) and attempts to integrate the effects shown by Moscovici and his collaborators within the functionalist model, or to reduce them to this model (see Doms 1978; Latane & Wolf 1980; the studies by Levine and his collaborators as reported in Levine 1980; Wolf I977> 1979). The effects of minority influence, the solid evidence for their existence, and the legitimate focusing upon them of the early research on the subject will be considered in this chapter in relation to a more complex social context, that of conflict between social groups. We shall present alternative views about the social dimensions which need to be taken into account in the experimental study of minority influence, while at the same time acknowledging that it would not have been possible to formulate these new conceptions without the fundamental reversal of postulates which was proposed by Moscovici in his interactionist model. 2. The theory of consistency Minorities do not control social and psychological resources (such as power, status, competence, attraction, etc.). What is, then, the source of their influence which cannot be due to the dependence of others? The early experiments (Faucheux & Moscovici 1967; Moscovici, Lage & Naffrechoux 1969; Moscovici & Neve 1973; see also Moscovici & Faucheux 1972) showed that the answer had to be sought in the behaviour of minorities, or more specifically in the organization of this behaviour, its rhetoric or its style. It is the formal structure of the actions of minorities which determines their influence, rather than the innovating contents which, it must be remembered, present initially little attraction - when they are not rejected outright. It is through the consistency of its behavioural style that a minority can become influential. This consistency can be defined with the help of several parameters. To begin with, when a minority is based on the dissidence of a few individuals, it must show itself to be united and unanimous. An example
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of the effects of this synchronic consistency was already provided in the famous experiments by Asch (1951, 1 9 5 6 ) - i f one agrees with Moscovici that Asch's studies were not really concerned with the influence of a majority (as defined by numbers of people in the experimental situation), but rather with minority influence, since the experimenter's confederates were introducing a new perceptual norm which was at variance with the norms accepted outside the laboratory. More recent experimental results confirmed the effects of synchronic consistency (Moscovici & Lage 1976). It is true, however, that the intervening processes do tend to vary as a function of several variables, such as: the numbers of people who are in the minority; the way in which the minority presents itself (for example, Nemeth, Wachtler & Endicott 1977 have shown that the effects of self-confidence decrease and the effects of competence become more marked as the size of the minority increases); the inferences which are made about the causes of the behaviour displayed by the minority (which are internal or ' psychologizing' as long as members of the minority are perceived as distinctively individual: cf. Moscovici & Lage 1976; Mugny & Papastamou 1980); and forms of social categorization (see Wilder 1977). But it was mainly diachronic consistency which formed the foundation of Moscovici's theory. This was initially defined as the firm, systematic, coherent and autonomous repetition of one and the same kind of response. A case in point is the pioneering experiment of Moscovici, Lage & Naffrechoux (1969), where, in each of their groups, four subjects who clearly perceived a series of slides as being blue were confronted by two confederates of the experimenters who named each of the slides in turn as green. In these conditions, more than 8 per cent of the responses given by the subjects changed to 'green'; when the 'innovating' responses of the confederates amounted only to 66 per cent of the total, they had no significant effects. Nemeth, Swedlund & Kanki (1974) were able to replicate the effect when the minority did not just keep on repeating the same response, but modified it slightly (moving from 'green' to 'blue-green'), on condition, however, that these response modifications were associated with a variation in the brightness of the stimuli. As Moscovici & Nemeth (1974) wrote, it is not really the consistency of the minority behaviour which is essential, but its recognition as such by the subjects, and the attributions (such as self-confidence, autonomy, etc.) which are derived from it. This recognition depends in turn on the nature of the situations in which can be observed the diffusion of innovations by a minority. For example, Nemeth & Wachtler (1974) have shown that when the minority chooses its place at the head of the table rather than being assigned to it by the experimenter, minority influence is increased. In order for its consistency
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to be recognized, the minority must behave in a way which is distinctive, it must assert its autonomy, make itself socially visible and become the focus of attention. In turn, when the minority can show that it has the capacity to influence, the effects of its consistency increase (Kiesler & Pallak 1975) in a snowball fashion. Studies of the effects of social support (Allen 1975) in the context of minority influence (Doms & van Avermaet 1980b) are also relevant to this issue. As it is the consistency of the behaviour rather than its nature which determines how the organization of the minority behaviour is perceived by others, it is also possible that this consistency is sometimes inferred in the absence of its behavioural indices, or even when these indices appear as mutually contradictory. Social pressures are often sufficiently powerful to threaten the symbolic, or even the physical, integrity of a person or a group (as was, for example, the case with Galileo). Personnaz (1979) did some work on minorities who renounced their convictions. He found that despite this renunciation, which was experimentally induced, minority influence was still operative as if the consistency continued in some symbolic and imaginary ways. There are other research results which can be understood in the same perspective. For example, Wolf (1979) has shown that, in some cases, a measure of inconsistency, as distinct from strong consistency, need not be prejudicial to minority influence so long as there exists an awareness, which is made socially salient, that this influence can be rejected. In sum, consistency and its effects cannot be fully understood without taking into account the global social context of the process of influence. It will be useful to consider the nature of the effects of minority consistency before we attempt their explanation. This is important, since certain consistency effects were systematically elicited despite the diversity of research paradigms. Thus, a direct minority influence is weaker than majority influence, while indirect minority influence can be stronger (cf. Moscovici & Lage 1976; Moscovici, Mugny & Papastamou 1981; Mugny 1974-5,1976; Papastamou 1979). Already in 1967, Faucheux & Moscovici were able to show that minority influence did not affect just the contents of the subjects' responses: it affected also their organization. Other studies have shown that minority influence can take the form of eliciting independent responses rather than leading to the acceptance of minority responses (Kimball & Hollander 1974); or that it can lead to responses which are novel and original (Moscovici & Lage 1978). There have recently been attempts in a series of studies to demonstrate this indirect form of influence, by assessing its sequential effects in a task involving chromatic perception (Doms & van Avermaet 1980a; Moscovici & Personnaz 1980; Personnaz 1981). On the whole, these studies
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confirm the existence of an indirect and subtle minority influence. There persist, however, some disagreements concerning the fact that majority influence can have similar effects. This divergence of views is associated with definitions of majority which are numerical rather than normative. For example, Doms & van Avermaet maintain that there is no such thing as specific effects of minority influence; their view is that majority and minority influence are governed by the same principles derived from the functionalist model (see Doms 1978; Doms & van Avermaet 1980b). All these various minority effects have been shown to exist not only in perceptual tasks but also in social judgments (Moscovici, Mugny & Papastamou 1981; Mugny 1982; Papastamou 1979). As these issues have recently been discussed by Moscovici (1980), they will not be pursued here; but we shall return in some detail to the problems of direct minority influence which is confronted by a systematic resistance. The problem remains of explaining why it is that consistency is the principal source of minority influence. It is essentially through its consistency that a minority acquires its capacity to generate a social conflict which becomes unmanageable for the system as long as the consistent minority refuses to negotiate or to compromise. Through this uncontrolled, and in some ways uncontrollable, breaking off the minority causes the system to lose its equilibrium and stresses its fallibility. The minority is effective in creating social agitation, in questioning the hitherto solidly established social regulations rather than in having its own propositions accepted (which, as we have seen, does not occur very often). The instability introduced by minority consistency has a dual character. First, when a minority refuses to submit or to deviate passively but instead claims to be recognized as an alternative, it breaks a social pact, it upsets the rules of the game. At the same time as a minority articulates the substance of new viewpoints which become salient in the social field, it also points towards the dimensions and directions of change. Indirect as they may be, the effects of the influence achieved by the minority cannot fail to follow in the directions which the minority suggests, and thus they lead to a restructuring and a reformulation of norms, undermining in this way the existing social system. Minorities can be seen to act as catalysts, as dynamic releasers of social development, even if it so happens that other social actors in other historical conditions will have to complete the process. This said, it must also be recognized that minority influence most often cannot be considered independently of whether it is or is not an expression of a general social crisis. Moscovici (1976) stressed this distinction which is due to the minority being either' pro-normative' or' anti-normative'. Paicheler
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(1976, 1977) has shown that the same behavioural style may take on a different significance and have different effects when the minority is progressive or when it is reactionary (see also Mugny 1979). Similar distinctions hold when behavioural styles are linked to a majority or a minority. In reinterpreting an experiment (Riba & Mugny 1981), we were able to show that the consistency of a majority acquires positive connotations (in the sense of 'flexibility'), while minority consistency, operationally defined in identical terms, is interpreted as 'rigidity'. The conclusion must be that, in this case as in all the others we have discussed, one cannot claim that the processes of minority influence are genuinely understood unless they are placed within a larger social dynamic which encompasses much more than the situation of social influence and is largely responsible for giving this situation whatever significance it may have. Another constant factor in the unravelling of the effects produced by minorities is that minorities are generally considered to be disliked, not very attractive or admired, fairly unappealing, uncooperative and incompetent (see particularly Nemeth & Wachtler 1974). In brief, minorities do not possess any of the characteristics which, according to functionalist theories, should ensure a positive influence. A minority can be positively evaluated only in those of its features which are associated with consistency - self-confidence, firmness, autonomy. This is why the key to the explanation of minority influence was sought in the processes of attribution (Moscovici & Nemeth 1974), in referring them to the model proposed by Kelley (1967). Such a conclusion was inevitable in view of the fact that the definition of consistency followed step by step the criteria of external attribution enumerated by Kelley: distinctiveness, consistency over time and over situations, consensus. It should be noted at this point that this background theoretical model has been criticized (see, in particular, Apfelbaum & Herzlich 19 7 0 - 1 ; Deschamps 1977; also see Chapter 19 of this book) for its failure to take account of certain social dynamics which are rooted in the relations between social groups or categories and in ideologies. The primary aim of this chapter is to insert the theory of consistency and its interpretation into the framework of social relations and of the functioning of ideologies. It is in this sense that the chapter will consider the 'social dimensions' of the phenomena of minority influence. 3. The social context of minority influence The theory of consistency was the first result of the important theoretical mutation which followed the critique of the functionalist vision of the social.
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Developments in Geneva (Mugny 1974, 1982; Papastamou 1979) took a different direction; this started from questioning the kind of experimental situations that were being used in order to illustrate the earlier conceptualization in terms of consistency. It was also necessary to reconsider the diversity of phenomena which were all subsumed under the common heading of 'minority influence'. The frequent use of experimental props consisting of perceptual stimulus material led inescapably to important consequences in the nature of the effects which were elicited and of the processes which were supposed to be implicated in them. Experimental situations of that kind were bound to increase the salience of consistency and of the attribution processes related to it (with their explanation closely modelled on the theory of Kelley 1967). These procedures were legitimate and necessary because of their undeniable value as demonstrations; but they also helped to conceal other forms of social dynamics, complementary to consistency, which significantly modify the nature of the problem. The basic weakness was that the earlier experimental situations over-simplified the social context of innovation, or sometimes even ran the risk of presenting a caricature of it (Latane & Wolf 1980). The social context of diffusion of innovations by minorities is of considerable complexity; this becomes particularly clear when one considers the diversity of the relations that obtain between the multiplicity of social agents. Because of this, simplifications will also be found in the discussion which follows, but an attempt will be made to concentrate upon those social relations which appear as the most characteristic. Let us take as an example one of our early experiments (Mugny 1975) in which measures taken (before and after the induction of influence) concerned social judgments about the Swiss national army. The subjects were opposed to it, but no more than moderately so. They were 17-year-olds who were soon due to start their military service, at a time when the military tribunals were becoming increasingly severe on those who refused to serve in the armed forces. Even if they were opposed to armed violence, the young men had to do their obligatory military service. They even saw in it some advantages, such as the formation of personality or a climate of comradeship, and a necessity - the defence of national borders. Can one, in referring to them, talk about a majority? The answer must be 'no' (unless one thinks in numerical terms alone, which do not really matter here). The young men were caught in a relationship of domination in which, on the one hand, they were confronted with a military institution; on the other hand they faced the dominant ideology which they had internalized when they made their way through the various ideological fixtures of the state (Althusser 1976). It is therefore important to make a distinction between those subjects (who will be referred
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to here as members of the population, without taking account, for the time being, of the profound divisions within this population) and the apparatus of power which imposes norms and rules, and diffuses the dominant ideology justifying these norms and rules and supplying them with their aura of universality. The effects of minority influence cannot be properly considered outside of this web of relationships. Seen in this context, consistency appears as essential in minority influence, but only to the extent that it defines the outlines of an alternative in a relationship of antagonism with the apparatus of power. A minority must be seen as firm, stable, self-confident and autonomous in this relationship. It is through its consistency, its break with those who hold power, its refusal to negotiate with them, that a minority can succeed, even before it has the chance to persuade anybody else, in creating a disequilibrium in the system and in upsetting the established norms and rules. But even if consistency is a notion which remains necessary for the understanding of minority influence, there is a basic reason why it is not sufficient. This is so because a minority does not aim to influence those who hold power but rather the population at large. Just as it is indispensable for a minority to be consistent in its breaking off with those who represent power in order to be clearly perceived as an alternative in the social field, a breaking off or a refusal to negotiate with the population would make it impossible to wield any influence. Before discussing the implications that this may have for the issue of behavioural styles in minority influence, it will be useful to consider the background to this difficulty. As we have seen, the targets of influence (to whom we have referred generically as the 'population' - as an analogy to the ' population' in an experiment) are inserted in the established relations of power and share, to varying extents, the dominant ideology. Through its consistency a minority would therefore create a conflict not only with the holders of power but also with the population. The survival of a minority often depends on its capacity to attract at least a significant part of the population and to achieve in this way some legitimacy. In attempting to exert influence it must therefore be able to show some flexibility in order to carry conviction. If this is not done, no influence would be exerted, or perhaps it would even be negative, through creating a polarization in the socialfield(Paicheler 1977) which is, by the way, sought at times by some minorities (cf. Mugny 1979). The pioneering work of Schachter (1951), and more recent studies (Doise & Moscovici 1969-70) provide good examples of this possibility of rejection. The notion of the style of negotiation underlies almost all of the research we have done. Rigidity in the style of negotiation was defined as extending
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the blocking of all negotiations to the population at large. In such cases, the minority is intransigent, consistent in an extremist way, and it rejects all compromise. It is then seen as extremist and exclusive, and it experiences great difficulties in achieving any influence at all (even if it may be true that the possibility of achieving conversions through some latent form of influence cannot be excluded; see Moscovici 1980). A minority style was defined as flexible when some concessions were made to the population so as not to accentuate the conflict, while the break with authority remained consistent. Our research - the procedural details will not be given here - has generally shown that minorities can achieve substantial (and direct) influence when they use flexibility. In the experiment in which the effects of rigidity were assessed, the subjects were first pre-tested about their social judgments, and then read a text, originating from a minority, which included categorically stated slogans or propositions representing the minority views in their extreme form. In conditions of flexibility, the slogans included qualifications which caused the statements to avoid an accentuation of conflict on points which were of particular importance to the population. For example, when judgments about the national army were used, the anti-militarist minority text (which was identical in all conditions, so that consistency remained constant across the study) was interrupted by 'rigid' interventions which presented conscientious objection (to which the subjects were favourable) as being 'petty bourgeois'; the 'flexible' interruptions admitted that conscientious objection could have validity if it was a collective action. Why is it that flexibility tends to have more influence than rigidity (Mugny 1974, 1982; Mugny & Papastamou 1975-6, 1980; Mugny, Pierrehumbert & Zubel 1972-3; Nemeth 1980; Nemeth, Swedlund & Kanki 1974; Papastamou 1979; Papastamou, Mugny & Kaiser 1980)? To interpret these effects, we have looked beyond the usual explanations (in terms of extremism of positions, or of assimilation and contrast) to the complex social relations between a minority, the population and the holders of power (Mugny & Papastamou 1976-7). One possible approach is to see what is the conception people have of the source of influence. This conception develops during the interaction associated with influence; but it is also largely affected by the wider social representations of deviance. Such representations are based not only on the contents of the minority message and its consistency, or even on its rigidity or flexibility: their most important aspect is in their organization. Thus, with minority consistency held constant, the rigidity of a minority increases the salience for the subjects of the information that negotiations are being blocked; in contrast, flexibility decreases the salience of this information. This modifies their conceptions of
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the minority. An experiment by Ricateau (19 70-1) is particularly important in this context. When the behavioural style of the minority was held constant, the subjects' conception of it was largely determined by the number of dimensions along which the minority could be represented. With fewer dimensions and more monolithic ideas about the minority, the blockage of negotiations was more clearly perceived and - in parallel - the influence of the minority became weaker. In contrast, a multi-dimensional view of the minority, based on more varied information about its characteristics, moderated these impressions of blockage and led to stronger minority influence. In brief, when blockage of negotiations becomes salient, rigidity becomes central to the image presented by the minority which is then categorized as dogmatic (Ricateau 1970-1; Mugny 1974, 1982). Two processes are likely to intervene at this point, one of which was discussed by Papastamou (1983). This concerns the way in which minority behaviour is perceived or interpreted. These interpretations are closely related to the social context which was discussed earlier. Through their participation in a relationship of power dominated by the authority, the subjects are well equipped to construct interpretations of deviance which derive from the dominant ideology. These dominant interpretations tend to attribute the causes of deviance to the characteristics (or dispositions) of those who deviate. More specifically, there is a tendency to 'individualize' or 'psychologize' the minorities. The population can be persuaded that members of minorities are consistent and/or rigid because this is a feature of their individual personalities (and that such personalities are rarely found: the reference to numbers contributes to the ideological argument). If the idea can be spread that the causes of membership of a minority must be sought in personality characteristics, the conflict which could be engendered by a minority is reduced and so is its potential influence (Mugny & Papastamou 1980; Papastamou, Mugny & Kaiser 1980; see also Chapter 22). We have been able to show experimentally that rigidity weakened influence only when the minority source was 'individualized', while influence was not affected by perceived rigidity when the source consisted of several independent minority entities; and that influence also decreased when the subjects were led to interpret the behaviour of a minority in psychological terms rather than from a political point of view. A more detailed discussion of these issues can be found in Papastamou (1983). Another attempt to explain the effects of the rigidity of a minority is also related to a basic social dimension. It invokes a process which combines individual and social functioning. In this view, the effects of social influence are seen as contributing to re-define the psychosocial identification of the target of influence.
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4. Minority influence and social identification When in situations of social influence the subjects interpret the contents of messages, they also interpret the social rules which are simultaneously conveyed. When a consistent minority is perceived as rigid, it is also considered as excluding all positions diverging from its own. As a result, the population sees itself as excluded in advance, with no possibility of seeking a reconciliation of points of view. Once a minority is categorized (in the sense of the term used by Tajfel 1972) as dogmatic, that is, as an outgroup whose attributes justify discrimination, there is no hope that this minority can still exert influence. This brings to mind the strategies concerning minorities used by the authorities (or power); these strategies aim at making it clear that being a member of a minority amounts to the membership of an outgroup which has its own special and salient attributes. At the same time, attempts are made to prevent the members of a minority from achieving a shared social identification ('ungrouping' the group - 'degrouper' le groupe, Apfelbaum 1980). Members of a minority can thus become an outgroup from the point of view of the majority (the holders of power and the population) without at the same time being able to construct for themselves an awareness of group membership which would make it possible for them to function in terms of their own social identity (see Tajfel 1978). Minority influence becomes dangerous for the authority when the minority is able to attract some members of the population at large and thereby proves that it is not an inaccessible outgroup and that it can fulfil certain common needs. For a minority, to be able to convince others is to blunt its initial differences from the rest of the population while at the same time increasing various similarities of category membership (in the sense of criss-crossing categorizations discussed by Deschamps 1977). It is for all these reasons that a minority using a flexible style is able to exert direct influence. When the minority manages to avoid the breakdown of negotiations with the population and to keep within bounds the conflict which it creates, it is then perceived as being less of an outgroup and does not activate to the same extent the forms of discrimination mentioned above (such as individualization, psychologization, categorization as dogmatic, etc.). In ensuring that the population perceives some similarity of background with it, the minority makes influence a possibility. As will be seen below, this implies not only the adoption by the population of new responses, but also some changes in its social identification. Influence of this kind must therefore be considered not only - as is usually the case - in terms of its contents but also in terms of new social regulations which it implies.
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Several experiments starting from this view of minority influence were conducted. For example, if it is true that rigidity, which results in the categorization of the minority as an exclusive outgroup (Tajfel 1972), makes it difficult or impossible for it to exert influence, then one should be able to increase the effectiveness of the influence through increasing the similarity, as perceived by the subjects, in the dimensions of their own group categorization and those of the minority. This was confirmed in an experiment (Mugny & Papastamou 1982) in which the subjects were made to believe that out of a total of eight characteristics which were considered, they shared with the minority either one or five. When five characteristics were shared, there was an increase in the influence exerted by a rigid minority; but this was not the case when the minority was flexible. In other words, the use of a flexible style seems to have been equivalent to a higher salience of common characteristics which served as a basis for a shared social identification. The links between influence and social identification can be made more explicit using as a basis the recent work of Turner (1978, 1982; see also Mugny, Rilliet & Papastamou 1981) who postulates a process ('Referential Informational Influence'; see Chapter 25 in this book) which accounts for the development and maintenance of social uniformities. In a paraphrase of Turner's theoretical propositions, it can be stated that in a situation of social influence: (i) the subject defines a source of influence as belonging to a specific social category (which is, in fact, culturally determined); (ii) the subject knows what are the stereotypic characteristics of that category; (iii) when the subject adopts the response of the source, or gets nearer to it, he assigns in fact to himself not only this particular response but also more generally the stereotypic characteristics of the source which have become salient in the situation involving influence. The nature of the stereotypic characteristics assigned to 'minority' cultural categories was discussed earlier. There is little doubt that these stereotypes constitute one of the principal difficulties experienced by minorities in their exercise of direct influence. This is so because, in addition to the conflicts which are generated by the contents of the alternatives proposed by minorities, there are also the risks involved in changing psychosocial identifications at a time when the stigmas attached to deviance become salient. One could talk, following Larsen (1974), about the social cost of identification. As a result, minority influence increases in social contexts in which the norm of originality is stressed, and it decreases when the individualizing and psychologizing of minorities is set in motion.
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An experiment by Mugny, Kaiser & Papastamou (1984), which will be reported here in a little more detail, illustrates some of the hypotheses concerned with social identifications in the context of influence. The study was conducted just before a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of the Swiss voters (83.8%) rejected a proposal entitled' Let us show solidarity' ('Etre solidaires'), the aim of which was to abolish the status of 'seasonal worker' which is particularly iniquitous in its application to some categories of foreign workers. The social climate just before the vote appeared particularly propitious for the study of what proved to be, a few days later, a case of minority influence. Five hundred pupils in secondary schools (collegiens), aged about 15, completed a series of questionnaires concerning their attitudes towards the presence of foreigners in the country. After a few general questions, they were asked to read a text defending a number of proposals favourable to foreigners which, in fact, took up some of the points included in the initiative which led to the referendum. This was therefore a minority text (socially as well as numerically, since only 16.2 per cent of voters were in favour of the proposals) which, according to various subsequent measures, also showed consistency. Four experimental conditions were used. One half of the subjects were informed that the text was prepared by a militant Swiss member of a minority group; the other half thought that the author was a member of a foreign minority group. Within each of these conditions, one half of the subjects were asked to make a guess, based on the contents of the message, about the personality characteristics of its author; the other half were requested to drato conclusions about the characteristics of the message and of the author. Therefore, in the first condition the establishment of a ' psychologizing' causal link between the author and the contents of the message was clearly encouraged, while this was not explicit in the second condition. After they had read the text, the subjects were asked to indicate on a seven-point scale the extent of their agreement with it. Already at that level, the results clearly confirmed several of our hypotheses. First, the same proposals were less acceptable when they were formulated by a foreigner in the name of foreigners than when they were made by a Swiss. The overall effect of 'psychologization' was significant; but it contributed particularly to the decrease of the effects of influence when the source was of Swiss nationality. The Swiss source differed significantly in its effects from the foreign source only when the process of' psychologization' was not induced. All this clearly confirms the arguments put forward by Papastamou (1983) as summarized in the preceding section of this chapter.
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Another task, which the subjects were requested to complete after they had read the text, aimed to test the hypothesis originating from Turner's (1982) work; namely, that in a situation of influence the subjects' self-attributions concern not only their responses (which correspond to the contents of the influence-inducing text) but also the stereotyped characteristics of the source, and that the difficulties encountered by minorities in their attempts to gain socially explicit influence stem from this form of self-attribution. The subjects were asked to describe the source on a series of scales deriving from the 'universal stereotype' (LeVine & Campbell 1972): trusting-suspicious; courageous-cowardly; aggressive-peaceful; moral-immoral; selfish-generous; shameful-proud; prejudiced-open-minded. At the end of the questionnaire, the subjects were asked to describe themselves on the same scales. Our hypothesis was that if the subjects attributed to themselves a response which they considered to be normative of their group, at the same time as they attributed to themselves other characteristics stereotypic of this group, there should be a stronger link between the self and ingroup descriptions in the condition which did not involve a ' psychologization' and included a more explicit agreement with the proposals. This was confirmed in the first analyses of the results; it was in this 'non-psychologizing' condition, which shows most clearly the effects of influence, where positive and significant correlations between the two sets of measures systematically appeared. In the' psychologizing' condition the correlations were significantly less marked. 5. Conclusion There are a number of ways in which the 'social' can be reintroduced into the study of social influence. As we have seen, the first requirement was to transform the view of society which dominated social psychology (Moscovici 1976). This had to be complementary to a change in the preoccupations of social psychology (also see Israel & Tajfel 1972) which would aim at an integration of levels of analysis hitherto neglected, such as those deriving from social positions, relations between groups and ideologies (Doise 1980; Mugny & Doise 1979). This attempt at a socio-psychological integration led to a redefinition of the social context from which minority influence derives its significance. It also resulted in establishing distinctions between styles of behaviour (consistency) and styles of negotiation (flexibility/rigidity) which correspond to different kinds of relationships and imply different processes even if it is true that these processes are complementary. This chapter has been mainly concerned with one specific approach which
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stresses the functioning of psychosocial identifications underlying the socially explicit minority influence. Other trends of research which stress in other ways the social dimensions of minority influence are equally legitimate. This is the case, for example, for the study of ideological processes, such as ' psychologization \ which, it will be remembered, intervene in the social conspiracy directed against minority influence (Papastamou 1983). The same is true of the study of the phenomena of conversion (Moscovici 1980), which appear to require a different type of analysis since they seem to ' escape' an explanation based on social identification even if they are a consequence of it. Difficulties in the way of a direct expression of minority influence are due to processes of social identification; but it remains true that conversion needs its own explanation which, it might be supposed, would be directly linked to experiences of conflict and to the socio-cognitive processes deriving from this experience. All these diverse and complementary approaches (which confronted each other at the international symposium on processes of social influence held in Barcelona in 1980; see Moscovici, Mugny & van Avermaet 1984) show that, ten years on, interest in the problems of minority influence is as lively as ever. This is mainly so because some of these approaches succeeded in integrating the social dimensions which are constitutive of these processes, and one would hope that in doing this they can become one of the prototypes of similar developments in other fields of social psychology. References Allen, V. L. 1975. Social support for non-conformity. In L. Berkowitz (ed.) Advances
in experimental social psychology, vol. 8. New York: Academic Press. Althusser, L. 1976. Positions. Paris: Editions Sociales. Apfelbaum, E. 1980. Poder entre grups i identitats socials. Cuadernos de psicologia, 2, 127-36. Apfelbaum, E. & Herzlich, C. 19 70-1. La theorie de l'attribution en psychologie sociale. Bulletin de Psychologie, 24, 961-76. Asch, S. E. 1951. Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgement. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press. 1956. Studies on independence and conformity: a minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70, 416. Cramer, D. 1975. A critical note on two studies of minority influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 257-60. De Montmollin, G. 1977. Vinfluence sociale: phenomenes, facteurs et theorie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Deschamps, J. C. 1977. Vattribution et la categorisation sociale. Berne: Lang. Doise, W. 1980. Levels of explanation in the European Journal of Social Psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 213-31.
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Doise, W. & Moscovici, S. 1969-70. Approche et evitement du deviant dans des groupes de cohesion differente. Bulletin de Psychologie, 23, 522-5. Doms, M. 1978. Moscovici's innovatie-effekt: poging tot integratie met het conformisme-effekt. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Leuven. Doms, M. & van Avermaet, E. 1980a. Majority influence, minority influence and conversion effect: a replication. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 283-92. 1980b. Social support and minority influence: the innovation effect reconsidered. Paper presented at the Symposium International sur les Processus d'Influence Sociale, Barcelona. Faucheux, C. & Moscovici, S. 1967. Le style de comportement d'une minorite et son influence sur les reponses d'une majorite. Bulletin du CERP, 16, 337-60. Hollander, E. P. i960. Competence and conformity in the acceptance of influence. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 360-5. Israel, J. & Tajfel, H. (eds.) 1972. The context of social psychology: a critical assessment. European Monographs in Social Psychology, No. 2. London: Academic Press. Kelley, H. H. 1967. Attribution theory in social psychology. In L. Levine (ed.) Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Kelley, H. H. & Shapiro, M. M. 1954. An experiment on conformity to group norms where conformity is detrimental to group achievement. American Sociological Review, 119, 667-70. Kelvin, P. 1979. Review of Moscovici's book: Social influence and social change. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 441-76. Kiesler, C. A. & Pallak, M.S. 1975. Minority influence: the effect of majority reactionaries and defectors, and minority and majority compromisers, upon majority opinion and attraction. European Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 237-56. Kimball, R. K. & Hollander, E. P. 1974. Independence in the presence of an experienced but deviate group member. Journal of Social Psychology, 93, 281-92. Larsen, K. S. 1974. Social cost, belief incongruence and race: experiments in choice behavior. Journal of Social Psychology, 94, 253-67. Latane, B. & Wolf, S. 1980. The social impact of majorities and minorities. Paper presented at the Symposium International sur les Processus d'Influence Sociale, Barcelona. Lemaine, G. 1974. Social differentiation and social originality. European Journal of Social Psychology, 4, 17-52. Levine, J. M. 1980. Reaction to opinion deviance in small groups. In P. Paulus (ed.) Psychology of group influence. New York: Erlbaum. LeVine, R. A. & Campbell, D. T. 1972. Ethnocentrism: theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes and group behavior. London: Wiley. Moscovici, S. 1976. Social influence and social change. European Monographs in Social Psychology, No. 10. London: Academic Press. 1979. Psychologie des minorites actives. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1980. Toward a theory of conversion behavior. In L. Berkowitz (ed.) Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 13. New York: Academic Press. Moscovici, S. & Faucheux, C. 1972. Social influence, conformity bias, and the study of active minorities. In L. Berkowitz (ed.) Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 6. New York: Academic Press. Moscovici, S. & Lage, E. 1976. Studies in social influence m : Majority versus minority influence in a group. European Journal of Social Psychology, 6, 149-74.
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1978. Studies in social influence iv: Minority influence in a context of originality judgements. European Journal of Social Psychology, 8, 349-65. Moscovici, S. & Nemeth, C. 1974. Social influence 11: Minority influence. In C. Nemeth (ed.) Social psychology: classic and contemporary integrations. Chicago: Rand McNally. Moscovici, S. & Neve, P. 19 73. Studies in social influence 11: Instrumental and symbolic influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 461-71. Moscovici, S. & Personnaz, B. 1980. Studies in social influence v: Minority influence and conversion behavior in a perceptual task. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 270-82. Moscovici, S., Lage, E. & Naffrechoux, M. 1969. Influence of a consistent minority on the response of a majority in a color perception task. Sociometry, 32, 365-79. Moscovici, S., Mugny, C. & Papastamou, S. 1981. 'Sleeper effect' et/ou influence minoritaire ? Etude theorique et experimentale de 1'influence sociale a retardement. Cahiers de psychologie cognitive, 1, 199-221. Moscovici, S., Mugny, G. & van Avermaet, E. (eds.) 1984. Perspectives on minority influence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Mugny, G. 1974. Negotiations et influence minoritaire. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Geneva. 1974-5. Majorite et minorite: Le niveau de leur influence. Bulletin de Psychologie, 28, 831-5. I 9 7 5 - Negotiations, image of the other and the process of minority influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 209-28. 1976. Quelle influence majoritaire? Quelle influence minoritaire? Revue Suisse de Psychologie, 35, 255-68. 1979. A rejoinder to Paicheler: the influence of reactionary minorities. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 223-5. 1982. The power of minorities. London: Academic Press. Mugny, G. & Doise, W. 1979. Niveaux d'analyse dans l'etude experimentale des processus d'influence sociale. Social Science Information, 18, 819-76. Mugny, G. & Papastamou, S. 1975-6. A propos du 'credit idiosyncrasique' chez Hollander: conformisme initial ou negotiation? Bulletin de Psychologie, 29, 970-6. 1976-7. Pour une nouvelle approche de Vinfluence minoritaire: les determinants psychosociaux des strategies d'influence minoritaires. Bulletin de Psychologie, 30, 573-91980. When rigidity does not fail: individualization and psychologization as resistances to the diffusion of minority innovations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 4 3 - 6 1 . 1982. Influence minoritaire et identite psychosociale. European Journal of Social Psychology, 12, 379~94Mugny, G., Kaiser, C. & Papastamou, S. 1984. Influence minoritaire identification et relations entre groupes: etude experimentale autour d'une votation. Cahiers de
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Mugny, G., Pierrehumbert, B. & Zubel, R. 1972-3. Le style d'interaction comme facteur de Tinfluence sociale. Bulletin de Psychologie, 26, 789-93. Mugny, G., Rilliet, D. & Papastamou, S. 1981. Influence minoritaire et identification sociale dans des contextes d'originalite et de deviance. Revue Suisse de Psychologie, 40, 314-32.
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Nemeth, C. 1980. Negotiation versus influence. Paper presented at the Symposium International sur les Processus d'influence Sociale, Barcelona. Nemeth, C. & Wachtler, J. 1974. Creating the perceptions of consistency and confidence: a necessary condition for minority influence. Sociometry, 37, 529-40. Nemeth, C, Swedlund, M. & Kanki, B. 1974. Patterning of the minority's responses and their influence on the majority. European Journal of Social Psychology, 4, 5 3-64. Nemeth, C, Wachtler, J. & Endicott, J. 1977. Increasing the size of the minority: some gains and some losses. European Journal of Social Psychology, 7, 15-27. Paicheler, G. 1976. Norms and attitude change 1: Polarization and styles of behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 6, 405-27. 1977. Norms and attitude change n : The phenomenon of bipolarization. European Journal of Social Psychology, 7, 5-14. Papastamou, S. 1979. Strategies d'influence minoritaires et majoritaires. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universite de Paris. 1983. Strategies of minority and majority influences. In S. Moscovici & W. Doise (eds.) Current issues in European social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Papastamou, S., Mugny, G. & Kaiser, C. 1980. Echec a l'influence minoritaire: la psychologisation. Recherches de Psychologie Sociale, 2, 41-56. Personnaz, B. 1979. Niveau de resistance a l'influence de reponses nomiques et anomiques. Etude des phenomenes de referents clandestins et de conversion. Recherches en Psychologie Sociale, 1, 5-27. 1981. Study on social influence using the spectrometer method: dynamics of the phenomena of conversion and covertness in perceptual responses. European Journal of Social Psychology, 11, 431-8. Riba, D. & Mugny, G. 1981. Consistencia y rigidez: reinterpretacion. Cuadernos de psicologia. Ricateau, P. 19 70-1. Processus de categorisation d'autrui et les mecanismes d'influence sociale. Bulletin de Psychologie, 24, 909-19. Schachter, S. 1951. Deviation, rejection and communication. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46, 190-207. Tajfel, H. 1972. La categorisation sociale. In S. Moscovici (ed.) Introduction a la psychologie sociale. Paris: Larousse. 1978. The social psychology of minorities. London: Minority Rights Group. Turner, J. C. 1978. Social identification and inter group behaviour: some emerging issues in the social psychology of inter group relations. Bristol: Research Proposal to the SSRC (UK). 1982. Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group. In H. Tajfel (ed.) Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de THornine. Wilder, D. A. 1977. Perception of groups, size of opposition and social influence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 253-68. Wolf, S. 1977. The effectiveness of dependence and consistency as sources of minority influence. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University. 1979. Behavioural style and group cohesiveness as sources of minority influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 381-95.

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24* The influence of minorities: ten years later1

This chapter was translated from the French by Henri Tajfel.

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

The influence of minorities

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