1. Reconsidering the socio-psychological processes underlying majority and minority influence
Stamos Papastamou*
Antonis Gardikiotis**
Gerasimos Prodromitis*
* Panteion University of Athens, Greece
** Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

2. Epistemological aim
Reintroduction of the societal dimension into social influence research by reconsidering certain socio-psychological processes.

3. Reminder to theoretical assumptions
Majority more influential than minority
Recipient’s initial attitude (distance) => influence
Congruent thinking
=> greater influence
=> indication of central processing
Central processing => strong arguments
Strong arguments are more persuasive, durable and influential.
Peripheral processing => weak arguments
=> Source status

4. Reminder to theoretical assumptions
Sociocognitive processes in social influence:
cognitive validation (focus on the content – topic)
social comparison (focus on the source)
Cognitive validation => dissociation (minority influence)
Social comparison => undissociation (majority influence)

5. Resistance to influence:
Dissociation => denial (search for weak points of the message)
=> decrease of direct influence
=> increase of indirect influence
Undissociation => psychologisation (attribution of message to psychological characteristics of source)
=> decrease of direct and indirect influence

6. Rethinking some methodological issues
The Thought listing technique
=> thoughts about message and/or topic
Maybe not only just a way of counting thoughts but may
=> lead to dissociation and
=> subsequently to cognitive validation
Argument quality
Strong arguments: perceived as persuasive and thus consensual
Weak arguments may be less consensual and thus conflictual

7. We think that the following need further research attention
Distinction between strong and weak arguments
Recipients’ initial attitude
The sociocognitive processes of majority and minority influence
Focus on thought listing and other techniques of elaboration

8. Research hypotheses Thought listing technique
Not just a method of counting thoughts (Maass & Clark, 1983)
We assume that it affects the process that attempts to assess
Activates the process of dissociation between source and message since it focuses on content and topic (see central processing)
At the same time it impedes the potential undissociation between source and message and therefore other potential sociocognitive processing (see peripheral processing)

9. Research program At the level of independent variables
majority and minority status
quality of arguments
Initial ideological distance from the source
Different kinds of elaboration that may activate different processes such dissociation and undissociation that in turn may lead to different kinds of resistance (e.g. denial, psychologisation, etc.)
At the level of dependent variables
Direct and indirect influence
Number and kind of thoughts
Use of arguments of different orientation i.e. towards the source or the message

10. Experiment 1

11. Participants and design
278 students (109 males, 171 females, aged between 18 and 29) of two Greek Universities
Randomly allocated to one of the sixteen experimental conditions of a
2 (source status: majority vs. minority) x
2 (argument quality: strong vs. weak) x
2 (order of cognitive elaboration: thought listing/validation-psychologization vs validation-psychologization/ thought listing ) x
2 (ideological closeness: distant vs. close)
between subjects factorial design.

12. Independent Variables
Source status
Majority (82%)
Minority (18%)
Ideological closeness
Distant subjects
Close subjects
Argument quality
Strong
Weak
Order of cognitive elaboration:
thought listing/validation-psychologization
validation-psychologization/ thought listing

13. Dependent Variables
Direct Influence (the legalization of voluntary euthanasia)
Indirect Influence (the right to suicide )
Cognitive elaboration: Thought Listing (Total number of thoughts, total number of congruent thoughts, message congruent, more congruent thoughts)
Validation-Psychologization scales (Papastamou, 1993) (Positive and negative psychologisation, denial, validation, positive – negative psychologisation, validation – denial, kind of argumentation, total psychologisation, total content argumentation)

14. Experimental design Distant subjects Close subjects
Order of cognitive elaboration
Thought list/ validation-psychologization
Validation-psychologization / Thought list
Thought / validation-psychologization
Strong argum.
Weak argum.
Majority
Minority

15. Results

16. Table 1. Two-way interaction between ideological distance and arguments quality on direct influence and on message congruent thoughts.
Close subjects
Distant subjects
Strong arguments
Weak arguments
M (SD)
Direct Influence
(F=6,31 p<.013, h2=.024)
4,90*
(,143)
5,10*
(,163)
3,33**
(,155)
2,74***
(,192)
Message congruent thoughts
(F=5,47 p<.02, η2=.021)
0,621*
(,040)
0,668*
(,045)
0,266**
(,046)
0,107***

17. Table 2 Two-way interaction between source status and arguments quality on indirect influence.

18. Table 3 Two-way interaction between source status and order of kind elaboration on indirect influence.

19. Conclusions Comparison of strong vs. weak arguments:
Direct influence: strong > weak only in distant participants.
Interaction between source status and argument quality:
Indirect influence:
Majority: strong > weak
Minority: weak > strong
It is the first time in the literature that weak arguments lead to (indirect) influence.
This finding makes us question the inherent incapability of weak arguments to exert influence

20. Interaction between source status and order of cognitive elaboration:
Minority condition and validation–psychologisation first and then thought listing => greater indirect influence compared to
Majority with same order (V-Ps first and then thoughts ).
Minority with reverse order (thoughts first and then V-Ps).
Indirect influence is greater when the process of undissociation between the source and the message comes first and then the dissociation between the two follows.
In other words when the potential psychologization is followed by the validation

21. Experiment 2

22. Participants and design
235 students (113 males, 122 females, aged between 18 and 33) of two Greek Universities randomly allocated to one of the sixteen experimental conditions of a
2 (source status: majority vs. minority) x
2 (argument quality: strong vs. weak) x
2 (kind of cognitive elaboration: thought listing vs. validation-psychologization) x
2 (ideological closeness: distant vs. close) between subjects factorial design.

23. Independent Variables
Source status
Majority (82%)
Minority (18%)
Argument quality
Strong
Weak
Kind of cognitive elaboration:
Thought listing
Validation-Psychologization scales
Ideological closeness
Distant subjects
Close subjects

24. Dependent Variables
Direct Influence (the legalization of voluntary euthanasia)
Indirect Influence (the right to suicide )
Cognitive elaboration: Thought Listing (Total number of thoughts, total number of congruent thoughts, more congruent thoughts) Validation-Psychologization scales (Positive and negative psychologisation, denial, validation, positive – negative psychologisation, validation – denial, kind of argumentation, total psychologisation, total content argumentation)

25. Validation – Psychologisation
Experimental design
Distant subjects
Close subjects
Thought List
Validation – Psychologisation
Strong argum.
Weak argum.
Majority
Minority

26. Results

27. Table 4: two-way interaction between ideological distance and arguments quality on direct influence.

28. Figure 1 Three-way interaction between ideological distance, argument quality and kind of cognitive elaboration on direct influence (F=10,61, p<.001)

29. Table 5 Two-way interaction between ideological distance and arguments quality on indirect influence.

30. Table 6 Two-way interaction between arguments quality and kind of cognitive elaboration on indirect influence (F=2,95, p<.085, η2=.016).

31. Figure 2 The two-way interaction between source’s status and kind of cognitive elaboration on indirect influence (F=8,18, p<.005)

32. Figure 3 Three-way interaction between source status, argument quality and kind of cognitive elaboration on indirect influence (F=8,88 p<.003)

33. Table 8 (Validation - psychologization conditions only) a) two-way interaction between source status and argument quality on indirect influence. b) correlations between indirect influence and the kind of cognitive elaboration
Strong arguments
Weak arguments
Majority
Minority
N=30
N=28
N=35
N=26
Indirect Influence (ND)
5,36* (.272)
5,39* (.278)
5,50* (.255)
3,97** (.289)
ND / Kind of cognitive elaboration
+.205 ns
+.463 p<.013
-.115 ns
-.454 p<.020

34. Table 7 (Validation - psychologization conditions only) Correlations between indirect influence and different kinds of cognitive elaboration

35. Table 9 (Thought List conditions only) a) two-way interaction between source status and argument quality on indirect influence b) correlations between indirect influence and total number of congruent thoughts

36. Table 10 (Thought List conditions only)
Table 10 (Thought List conditions only). two-way interaction between ideological distance and argument quality on Direct Influence, Indirect influence and Total Number of Thoughts.

37. Conclusions
Strong arguments more influential than weak in distant participants
This is happening in the thought listing conditions, when participants are led to cognitive validation. In other words under the process of dissociation
Whereas in the validation-psychologization conditions (where participants are led to focus on both source and message) minority’s indirect influence on weak arguments is:
less than majority indirect influence on weak arguments,
and less than minority’s on strong arguments.
The greater indirect influence of weak minority arguments is evident in the thought listing conditions.

38. The three-way interaction shows that only the weak arguments are sensitive to source status and kind of cognitive elaboration:
On the one hand:
majority leads to greater indirect influence in the conditions of «validation-psychologisation» (i.e. of «potential psychologisation») and
the minority in the «thought listing» conditions (i.e. of «de facto cognitive validation»),
On the other hand:
Potential psychologization reduces minority’s indirect influence and increases majority’s indirect influence and
the ‘de facto’ cognitive validation increases minority’s indirect influence and reduces majority’s one

39. By looking at the correlations between cognitive processes and indirect influence:
Majority’s indirect influence is enhanced by psychologization and blocked by the process of cognitive validation,
Whereas minority’s indirect influence is enhanced by cognitive validation and is reduced by psychologization.

40. THANK FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
To neglect source status is impossible because:
cognitive processes can not by themselves explain the influence phenomena
conceals the interesting way they work
The same sociocognitive processes:
acquire different meanings,
function differently
and produce different socio-cognitive phenomena depending on majority or minority status.
THANK FOR YOUR ATTENTION!