Moscovici, Serge (1925 )

Minority Influence

Moscovici's theory of minority influence emerged from his criticism of the U.S. approach to social influence, which equated influence with conformity. 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 cognitive level, they question the established (majority) worldview; at the social level, they threaten interpersonal relationships. Initially, people try to resolve the conflict by attributing the minority position to undesirable psychological characteristics (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 minority position as a valid alternative.

In a revision of his initial model, Moscovici placed less emphasis on behavioral style and [Page 581]elaborated on the ways that people resolve conflict caused by the dissenting minority. According to his conflict theory, the dissenting minority triggers 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 convert. 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 deviation from the majority. They engage in the comparison process, through which they try to fit in with the majority. Because people change their views without close examination of the majority position, their change is superficial in that it represents public compliance and not private acceptance of the majority position.

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