The mediational effects of attributions and information processing in minority social influence

Abstract

Minority influence research has focused on behavioural factors that lead to successful social influence, such as acting in a consistent manner, but has tended to ignore the psychological processes that may mediate successful influence. Moscovici (1976) posited that such psychological mediators include attributions concerning the causes for the minority's behaviour and a validation process in which subjects carefully consider the issues raised by the minority position. The current article examines the links between social cognition theories of stereotyping and attitude/impression formation and minority influence by delineating the role of both attributions and systematic message appraisal in minority influence. Successful minority influence was predicted to be dependent on the types of attributions formed towards the minority because such attributions influence the manner in which we attend to and think about a minority position. The data reveal that subjects with positive attributions were more influenced by the minority message than subjects with negative attributions. More importantly, this difference in persuasiveness was shown to be mediated by different cognitive processing strategies—subjects with positive attributions were more likely to systematically process the minority message. In addition to exploring the cognitive underpinnings of successful minority influence, the impact of social pressure and power struggles between social groups is considered in evaluating the applied value of such process‐oriented research. Finally, it is suggested that while consistent behaviour is one way in which the minority can draw attention to its position and increase the likelihood of influence, recent models and stereotyping and impression formation suggest another approach. Instead of the minority accepting the burden for instigating a validation process in members of the majority, such attention and validation can be instilled in those perceiving the minority through adopting goals that promote individuated and systematic information processing; through rejecting stereotypic and schematic processing strategies that promote biased impressions.