A Time Series Analysis of Minority Influence on Majority in a Group

Abstract

The present study examined how the consistent behavior of a minority affects both the behavior and the internalization of the behavior of a majority. The formation processes of the majority's attributions (judgements of confidence and competence) to the minority were also investigated. The subjects, 80 male undergraduate students, comprising five-member groups and were randomly assigned to either a 10-trial or a 20-trial condition. One of the group members was a confederate. For each trial subjects were required to construct a 70cm vertical line as accurate as possible on a screen at a distance of 3.3m. A confederate continued to present a deviant response (an 85cm long line). After the trials subjects were required to construct some vertical lines privately (posttest). Results showed that (1) in progress of trials the majority became to conform toward the minority although the internalization of the behavior was not always found contrary to prediction, (2) the majority became to judge the consistent minority to be less competent but more confident than themselves, (3) in this attribution the majority was less sensitive to the judgement about confidence than to the one about competence, and (4) the majority judged the minority to be more confident than themselves when the majority's behavior was larger discrepant to the minority's.