L'influence sociale comme processus de changement

Abstract

This paper relies on social psychology to explain the nature of social cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia means that, despite selectivity and social resistance to innovation, minority views can induce transformations in perceptions, without being credited with having done so. The proposed analytic model calls for three sets of notions. 1. Accounting for such phenomena as discrimination against - and open resistance to - minority views, the process of social comparison derives its impetus from a dynamics of identity. 2. Accounting for latent normative transformations, the process of validation derives its impetus from a sociocognitive dynamics of a constructivist type... 3. Connecting social comparison and validation, the notion of dissociation, implies that, when latent, the influence exerted by a minority - here defined as conversion - relies on a sociocognitive process which is not only majority-centered, but minority-centered as well. This process takes place in a multidimensional rather than unidimensional universe of judgments.