european journal of social psychology volume 12 issue 1 1982

8/12/2019 European Journal of Social Psychology Volume 12 Issue 1 1982

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European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 12, 89-104 1982)

The effects of dmerential ascribed category membership and normson minority influence

ANNE MAASSFlorida State UniversityRUSSELL D. CLARK, I l lFlorida State UniversityGERALD HABERKORNEast West Comm unication Institute

AbstractInvestigated how either perceived competency or self-interest-and Zeitgeist affectminority influence, or: how Moscovicis theory does apply to actual social minorities.The self-interest notion predicts that single minorities deviating only in terms ofbeliefs) are more influential than double minorities deviating also in categorymemberhip) while the competency notion predicts the reverse. Further, eitherminority is expected to be influential only when the Zeitgeist is in favour of theminority position. In a 2 prolanti Zeitgeist) x 3 singleldouble minoritylcontrol)factorial design, 120 conservative male American undergraduates discussed in groupsof six-including two either male single minority) or female double minority)consistently liberal con ederates-one of two issues: abortion pro-)or death penalryanti-Zeitgeist). The results support the self-interest notion: double minorities areperceived as having a stronger self-interest and exerted less influence than singleminorities. The Zeitgeist hypothesis is confirmed, too. The underlying attributwnalprocesses and the ecological validity of previous studies are discussed.

INTRODUCTIONSince Sherifs 1936) and Aschs 1951) early work o n conformity, it has becom e asocial psychological truism th at individuals tend to yield to a majority position ev enwhen that position is clearly incorrect. Conformity became a term nearlyequivalent in meaning t o social influence. It was only in 19 69 that M oscovici an dhis co-authors pointed out that social influence is by no means limited to aone-directional dependency of the minority on the majority. R eversing the usualconformity paradigm , Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoilx 1 969) demonstrated thata consistent minority is able to exert a rem ark ab le degree of influence even when itis not equipped with such characteristics as power, status, competence, oridiosyncracy credits (Hollander, 1964).0046-2772/82/010089-16 01.60 Received 9 December 198098 2 by John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Revised 3 June 1981


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9 0 A Maass, R. D . Clark, IIZ and G HaberkornAccording to Moscovicis (1976) theory, the key to minority influence is theinference m ade by the m ajority during conflict. An initially powerless minority caninduce conflict with the majority by insisting on an alternative position. If the

minority a do pt s certain be hav ioura l styles, notably consistent support of theminority position (Moscovici, 1 97 6; Moscovici and Fau cheaux, 1972), the majoritywill perceive the minority as certain, convinced, and competent (Moscovici andNemeth, 1974). Thus, minority influence is not determined by consistency per se ,but rath er the specific inferences mad e by th e majority as a function of t he m inoritysbehavioural style.Since Moscovici et al . (1969) original colour perception experiment, the basicminority influence paradigm has successfully been applied to such diverse tasks asjury decision making (Nem eth and Wachtler, 19 74 ; Nem eth, W achtler andEndicott, 197 7) and gro up discussions of a variety of current social problems (e.g.guest workers in Sw itzerland, Mugny, 1 97 5b ; the role of women in contemporaryFrench society, Paicheler, 1976). Numerous variables have been investigatedincluding the number of minority m em bers (Moscovici and Lage, 197 6 Nem eth etal . , 1977), the relation between minority and majority position (Mugny, 1975b;Paicheler, 1 97 6, 1977 , 19 79 ), shifts in minority position (Kiesler an d Pallak, 1975;Levine an d Ranelli, 1 97 8), nationality an d personal bias (Nem eth and W achtler,19 73 ), rigidity versus flexibility of argu mentation (Mugny, 19 75 a; Nem eth,Swedlund and K anki, 1 974 ; Ricateau, 1 97 1), novelty of argumentation (Vinokuran d Bu rnstein, 1978), and consistency across issues (Allen a nd W ilder, 1978.). A tthe same time, a number of qualitative differences between majority and minorityinfluence have been discussed (Doms and Van Avermaet, 1980; Moscovici andLage 1 97 6; Moscovici and Personnaz, 1 98 0; Sorrentino, King and Leo, 198 0;Wachtler, 19 76 ), and several studies have atte m pte d to test the theory of minorityinfluence against such competing explanations as dependence (Wolf, 1979) andHollanders theory of idiosyncracy credits (Chilstrom and Bray, 1979)In stressing the importance of the theory, Moscovici (e.g. Moscovici, 1976;Moscovici and Faucheux, 19 72 ; Moscovici and Nem eth, 1974) has frequentlydrawn on historical examples to em phasize th e applicability of th e theory to actualminorities. Yet, in spite of the large number of studies that have been conductedduring th e past decade, this central question rem ains unanswered: Can th e findingsof the minority influence literature be applied to true social minorities such asBlacks, Jews, or guest workers? In considering this question, it is useful todifferentiate betwe en single an d double minorities ( H ab erk orn and M aass,1978). Single minorities may be defined as individuals who deviate from themajority only in term s of the ir beliefs, such as the anti-war stud ents of the mid 60s.Dou ble minorities, in co ntra st, differ from th e majority not only in terms of theirbeliefs, but also in term s of ascribed catego ry me mbersh ip cf. Jon es a nd McGillis,19 76 ) o r social categorization (Tajfel, 1 97 8; Tu rn er, 1978 ). A B lack radical, forexample, differs from the white American majority both in terms of beliefs a nd interms of membership in a salient racial minority. In terms of this distinction,previous minority influence research, with one exception (Nemeth and Wachtler,19 73 ), has de alt exclusively with single m inorities.Besides consistency, Moscovici 1976) mentioned four additional behavioural types: investment, aut-onomy, rigidity and fairness of which only rigidity has been investigated in a systematic way Moscoviciand Neve, 1973; Mugny, 1975a; Nemeth, Swedlund and Kanki, 1974).


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Category membership, norms and minority influence 91In the only study to employ a double minority2, Nemeth and Wachtler 1973)

manipulated the ostensible ethnic background German, Italian, or American) ofthe minority confederate who consistently voiced a preference for a set of paintingsostensibly of German or Italian origin. The authors reasoned that the confederatewould be perceived as more biased when expressing a preference for paintings ofhis own nationality double minority) than when he was from the same Americanbackground as the majority subjects single minority). Contrary to this prediction,the confederates were able to influence the majority only when they expressed apreference for the German paintings; the German confederate was also moreinfluential than either the Italian or American confederate in this case. According tothe authors post hoc explanation, the double minority status did not evoke anattribution of self-interest, but rather the perception of superior knowledge andcompetence. This conclusion, however, should be treated with caution for tworeasons. First, the attribution of competence was neither manipulated nor was itassessed in the post-experimental questionnaire. Second, unexpected pro-Italianpreferences were obtained in the control group which make it difficult to drawconsistent conclusions.

Although Nemeth and Wachtlers results suggest that single and double minoritiesexert a differential degree of influence, their study provides little insight into themediating processes which underlie these differences. One approach toconceptualizing this problem is to consider how some of the variables which relateto the extent of influence by single minorities might apply in the double minoritycase. In particular, two competing predictions can be made from two potentialmediating processes. a) Nemeth et af. 1977) proposed that with increasing size ofthe minority two members or more), the attribution of competence becomes acritical determinant of the amount of minority influence. If one furtherassumes-as has been suggested by Nemeth and Wachtler 1973) in theirpost hocexplanation-that double minorities will be perceived as more competent if thetask is of direct relevance to their minority status, then double minorities can beexpected to be more influential than single minorities on such tasks. A Jewishminority for example should be perceived as more competent and hence be moreinfluential than a Gentile minority if the topic is anti-Semitism, but not if the topicis U S elations with the Peoples Republic of China. Indirect support for thisposition is provided by Nemeth and Wachtler 1973), although unequivocalconclusions are precluded due to the limitations discussed above. b) Drawing onattribution theory and the attitude change literature e.g. Hovland and Mandell,1952; Walster, Aronson and Abrahams, 1966), Nemeth and Wachtler 1973)proposed that double minorities will be perceived as having greater self-interest andthus be less influential than single minorities when the task is of direct relevance tothe minority status. The results of their study, however, did not confirm thisprediction.

A second general approach to this problem derives from the work of Paicheler1976, 1977) who argued that minority influence is mediated by the evolution of

recent study by Paicheler (1979) included conditions in which a male or female confederate holdinga minority view on womens rights confronted a heterogene ous mixed sex) m ajority. Since this studydid not include a double minority condition as defined above, it is somewhat tangential to the presentdiscussion and will not e presented in detail.


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92 A Maass, R . D . Clark, III and G Haberkornthe Zeitgeist. In he r studies, minority influence was facilitated when the no rm trendwas mo ving toward th e position ad voca ted by the minority. W hen the Zeitgeist wasunfavourable, the communication between majority and minority quickly brokedown, an d polarization of the original opin ions occ urre d. Although Paicheler do esnot address the issue of single versus double minorities, it is likely that singlemino rities will be mo re influential than do ub le minorities only when the Z eitgeist isfavo ura bie to minority influence. When the Z eitgeist is unfavourable, neith er singlenor double minorities will be able to move the majority position towards them; ifpolarization of the m ajority position occurs, i t can even be exp ected to b e strongerfor d ou ble than for single minorities.The present experiment attempted to test the differential predictions of theappro aches discussed ab ove. In or de r to assess the impact of single versus doubleminority m emb ership group s of male su bje cts discussed a critical topic with th eminority consisting of eith er two m ale (single minority) o r two female confederates(do ub le minority). W omen were defined as a minority in accordance with a socialdefini tion (r athe r than quan ti tat ive; see Van De n Berghe, 1967 ) of minority as arelatively pow erless an d identifiable subg rou p of society-a definition em ployed bymany gove rnm ents and the United Nations.T h e two con fede rates consistently advocated a point of view which deviated fromthe opinion held by the other subjects. On one of the issues, the pro-abortionposition taken by the minority was favoured by the development of the Zeitgeist.O n the second issue, the anti-death penalty position ra n co unte r to the evolution ofthe Zeitgeist . A number of articles (e.g. J on es and Westoff, 19 78 ) suggest thatattitude s towa rds abo rtion a s well as ab ortion laws have becom e increasingly liberalin the Un ited States over th e past 30 years. Th us, the development of the Zeitgeistappears to be in fa vou r of a m inority arguing for a m ore liberal abortion law. Incontrast , the resumption of executions in the U nited State s after several years of n ocapital punishment and the increasing public support for capital punishment(Ran kin, 1979; Hesselbart , 1980) indicate tha t a m inority arguing against the d ea thpenalty will run counter to the evolution of the Zeitgeist.In summary, two com peting hypo theses were formulated with respect t o thedifferential impact of dou ble versus single minorities. According to the competencynotion, a doub le minority was expected to be perceived as more com petent , andhence be more influential than a single minority when arguing about an issue(abort ion) of direct relevance to th e minority status. Alternatively, the self-interestnotion predicted th at the d oub le minority should be perceived as being biased, andthu s ex er t less influence than single mino rities in this case. Neither n otion pred icteda differential effect fo r dou ble an d single minorities when the issue (dea th penalty)was not related to the minority status.An additional hypothesis was formulated with respect to the conditions whichfavou r or im pede minority influence. According to the Zeitgeist notion a m inoritywould be expected to exert the strongest influence when the Zeitgeist is movingtoward s the direct ion of the m inority (ab ortion ) while minority influence should b eminimized when the Z eitgeist is unf avo ura ble to the position advocated by theminority (death penalty).


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Category membership, norms and minority influence 93METHOD

SubjectsOne-hundred twenty male subjects with moderately liberal to strongly conservativeattitudes anti-abortion and pro-death penalty) were selected from a pool of 271undergraduates on the basis of a 7-point Likert-type attitude scale. Subjects weredivided into four subgroups according to their pretest scores. The most liberalsubgroup was slightly more liberal than the mean z-scores between -0.25 and 0)while the other three subgroups ranged on the conservative side of the scale. Thelatter subjects were grouped into those with z-scores between 0 and 0.3, 0.3 and0.7, and above 0.7. Subjects on the liberal side of the distribution were excluded iftheir z-scores ranged below -0.25 in order to assure the necessary discrepancybetween the subjects opinion and the minority position and to avoid a coalitionformation between the most liberal subjects and the confederates. Thus, the finalsample was representative for approximately 70 per cent of the total population.

In a 2 abortion versus death penalty) x 3 single minority versus doubleminority versus control group) factorial design, subjects were randomly assigned tofour experimental and two control conditions, including five groups per condition.In each group, subjects were matched according to the four subgroups describedabove. Due to occasional no-shows and substitution with additional subjects theblocking was incomplete in some of the experimental groups.

Pilot studyA 7-point attitude scale with four items per issue was constructed. The first twoitems assessed the subjects general approval or disapproval of death penalty andabortion and the specific conditions under which they considered abortion anddeath penalty appropriate. T w o additional questions were asked for each issue thelikelihood of mistaken death warrants, the preventative function of capitalpunishment; the requirement of the husbands consent on abortion, and thecoverage of abortions by Medicaid/Medicare). The questionnaire was pretested ona sample of 31 undergraduates. The internal consistency of the scales yielded 0.85Cronbachs Alpha) for the death penalty and 0.81 for the abortion scale. In

addition, the pilot study assured that both issues, abortion and death penalty, wererated equally important (X abortion 2.0, X death penalty 2.0, t 29) 0.0, n.s.,where 1 important, 7 unimportant).Initial attitude assessmentAn initial attitude assessment (N 271) was conducted in order to select subjectsfor the main experiment. To assure that the scores were comparable for both issues,the initial attitude scores were transformed to z-scores, item by item. The z-scoresfor each subject were averaged across items and subjects were selected on the basisof their mean z-scores.ProcedureSubjects were told that they were participating in a study on human relationsinvestigating the impact of attitudinal differences on group decisions. In the


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94experimental conditions subjects were members of a conservative majority whilethe confederates were consistently putting forward a liberal position.

A Maass, R . D . Clark, 111 and G Haberkorn

Experimental conditionsFor the pro-Zeitgeist conditions, four subjects and two confederates read four legalbills which were purportedly potential replacements for the present abortion law.The most conservative of the bills would not allow abortions under anycircumstances while the most liberal abortion law would not limit abortion duringthe first three months. In t h e anti-Zeitgeist conditions, the subjects and twoconfederates discussed four bills about the death penalty ranging from the mostconservative bill which would allow capital punishment for several crimes up to themost liberal bill which rejected capital punishment under all conditions. In half ofthe pro- and anti-Zeitgeist conditions, subjects were confronted with two maleconfederates single minority) while the other half was exposed to two femaleconfederates double minority).

Subjects were asked to discuss the bills for 20 minutes and, if possible, to reach aunanimous decision as to which bill should be accepted. If no consensus wasreached t h e discussion was terminated after 20 minutes. Subjects were then askedto fill out individually an attitude questionnaire on the same topic. After theexperiment subjects were carefully debriefed and both the experimental design andthe necessity for the deception was explained in detail.Constitution of control groupsControl subjects were asked to fill out the attitude questionnaire without readingthe legal bills and without participating in the group discussion. A set of fivenominal control groups was constituted for each topic from among the controlsubjects using the same criteria as for the experimental groups. Thus, each controlgroup consisted of four randomly assigned subjects-one from each of the foursubgroups.Training of con ederatesThree male and three female undergraduates served as the minority in both t hepro- abortion) and anti-Zeitgeist death penalty) conditions. The confederateswere provided with a number of arguments for each topic. In order to assure thatthese arguments were not unusual or highly sophisticated, the six most frequentlylisted arguments were selected from a pretest in which undergraduates were askedto give reasons for and against the death penalty and abortion. The six mostpopular arguments for abortion were disadvantages of being an unwanted child,overpopulation and starvation, free choice of motherhood, danger of poorlyperformed illegal abortions, stress associated with pregnancy resulting from rape,and costs of child care. The six most popular arguments against capital punishmentwere legalized murder, possibility of erroneous sentences, lack of payoff for victim,chance for rehabilitation, ineffective method of crime prevention, anddiscrimination against minority groups.

The confederates were instructed to argue for the most liberal bill, and to defendtheir position consistently without shifting towards the majority position. Following


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Category mem bership, norms and minority influence 95Mugnys 1975a) findings, however, confederates were also asked to use theirarguments in a flexible rather than repetitious way. That is, the confederates weretrained to adapt their argumentation to previous comments of other groupmembers. Further, they were instructed not to dominate the discussion and to leaveenough time for other group members to talk.Dependent measureThe single item scores on the post-test attitude questionnaire were transformedinto z-scores using the norms from the initial attitude assessment. These z-scoreswere then averaged in order to obtain a single attitude score for each subject.Attitude change scores were obtained by subtracting the subjectss mean post-testz-score from his mean pretest z-score, with positive scores indicating a changetowards the minority position.Manipulation check and attributional measuresAs in most minority influence studies, the perceived consistency of the minority wasassessed by a post-experimental questionnaire. Each subject was asked to rate theconsistency of argumentation of each of the other group members on a 7-pointscale. This was essential for the present study since, contrary to most other minorityinfluence studies, the minority was represented by both male and femaleconfederates. Thus, it was important to assure that male and female confederateswere perceived as equally consistent.

Since it was hypothesized that attitude shifts of the majority might be mediatedby perceived competence or perceived self-interest, subjects were also asked to rateeach of the other group members on a 7-point scale with respect to theircompetence and self interest. Finally, perceived certainty was included sinceMoscovici e g Moscovici, 1976) claimed in his original formulation of the theorythat perceived certainty rather than competency is the critical attribution inminority influence.

RESULTSUnit of analysisSince subjects were nested within groups, and groups were nested withintreatments, it was necessary to determine first whether individual scores or groupsshould serve as appropriate unit of analysis. In order to test the significance of thenested group variances, a preliminary hierarchical ANOVA was performed on allgroups including the nominal control groups) which would be included in the finalanalyses.

Groups were not found to reliably add variance to the residual error termF 24, 90) 1.23, p 0.24). Consequently, the between and within groupvariances were pooled and individual scores were used as unit of analysis

throughout the statistical analyses see Anderson and Ager, 1978).Attitude changeIn order to determine the degree of attitude change as a function of topic, minoritystatus, and discrepancy of opinion, a 2 abortion versus death penalty) x 3 single


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96minority versus double minority versus control group) x 4 (subgroups) ANOVAwas performed3. Su bgr oup s were included in the analysis since Paicheler (1976,1977) found that the Zeitgeist had differential effects according to the initialdiscrepancy of opinion.Topic F 1, 96) 16.44, < 0.001), minority status F 2 ,96) = 6.16, 0.1) nor did the perceivedcompetence vary as a function of any other variable topic or type of minority).Self-interestBased on the findings of Walster et a l . 1966) and Nemeth and Wachtler 1973),we investigated whether the attribution of self-interest might mediate minorityinfluence. The means for this variable are presented in Table 1. A 2 topic) x 2type of minority) x 2 majority versus minority) ANOVA with repeated measures

on the last variable showed that the minority was perceived as having a significantlystronger self-interest than the majority F 1, 16) 27.21, p < 0.001). Moreimportantly, the attribution of self-interest was particularly pronounced for doubleminorities as is demonstrated by the interaction between majority versus minorityratings and type of minority F 1, 16) 5.05, p < 0.05). A subsequentNewman-Keuls test showed that the double minorities were perceived as having astronger self interest than either the single minorities or the majority p < 0.05 ,while the single minorities and the majority were perceived as having the samedegree of self-interest.CertaintyIn accordance with Moscovicis original formulation, single and double minoritiesX 1.75) were perceived as more certain than the majority X = 2.27; F 1, 16)

10.17, p < 0.01) while the minority status and topic did not interact withmajority versus minority ratings.

DISCUSSIONThe primary question raised in the present study was the generalizability of findingson single minorities to actual minority groups. Two hypotheses were formulatedmaking differential predictions for single versus double minorities under conditions


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Category membership norms and minority influence 99of task-relevant minority membership. The competency notion predicted thatdouble minorities would be perceived as more competent and consequently bemore influential than single minorities. This prediction was not confirmed for eitherthe perceived competency or attitude change measures. On the contrary, subjectsshowed a strong but nonsignificant trend to modify their attitudes more whenconfronted with a single minority than when exposed to a double minority. Theobtained results were consistent with the self-interest notion: double minoritieswere perceived as having a stronger self-interest than both single minorities andnaive subjects, and tended to be less influential than the single minority.

From the perspective of the majority member, the attributional process can bethought of in the following way: The subject observes a consistent minority whichstubbornly defends its position against the majority and infers that the minoritymust be very certain about its position. In addition, attribution of certainty isheightened by two factors. First, the subject observes the considerable socialpressure from the majority trying to reach a consensus. In terms of Kelleys 1971)augmentation principle the subject is provided with a facilitative cause theperceived certainty) and an inhibitory cause social pressure), and will thereforejudge the facilitative cause for the minoritys deviance even greater than if it alonewere present. Second, the attribution of certainty is heightened by the fact that thedisagreement with the minority cannot easily be explained as an idiosyncracy e.g.craziness) of the deviates personality since the minority is not alone but receivesthe social support from another minority member Allen, 1975).

When confronted with a double minority, however, an additional variable mayenter the attribution process: the inferred self-interest of a double minority. Doubleminorities were perceived as having a stronger self-interest than either singleminorities or majorities. This attribution might offer an alternative cause for theminoritys deviance and, thus, allow the majority observers to discount thearguments of the minority c f . Anderson, 1974). Although the results of the studyare consistent with this explanation, the design of the experiment precludes anexperimental test of such a discounting effect.

Two alternative explanations might account for the finding that doubleminorities are less influential than single minorities. First, considering thatdiscrimination against women is still a frequent phenomenon in current Americansociety, it is conceivable that double minorities as operationalized in the presentstudy had less impact due to sexist attitudes of the subjects. The post-experimentalassessment, however, does not indicate any sexual discrimination; according to theperceptual measures, women minorities were perceived as equally consistent,competent and certain as their male counterparts.

Secondly, the differential impact of single versus double minorities can beconceptualized as an expression of the more general phenomenon of socialcategorization Tajfel, 1978; Turner, 1978). In his theory of social categorization,Tajfel has proposed that the grouping of social objects into distinct categories is initself sufficient cause for intergroup discrimination. Thus, the mere perception ofbelonging to different social groups is sufficient to induce ingroup favouritism andoutgroup discrimination. Since double minorities were defined as belonging to adistinctly different social category, outgroup discrimination might have occurredfor double but not for single minorities who were members of the same socialgroup. This explanation is in line with the finding that double minorities were


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100perceived as having greater self-interest independent of whether or not the task wasrelated to their minority status. Considering, however, that no other attributionalmeasure consistency, competency, certainty) revealed any ingroup favouritism oroutgroup discrimination, this explanation should be treated with caution. Only anorthogonal design in which double and single minorities argue both for and againsttheir own interest would allow us to decide whether double minorities are generallyless influential because they constitute an outgroup, or whether they will be lessinfluential only when perceived as having a strong self-interest.

The second problem addressed in this study is the question why certainminorities in history were highly successful while others were not. With reference toPaicheler 1976, 1977) it has been argued that a minority will be most successfulwhen the development of the norms is favouring the position advocated by theminority. On the other hand, minority influence will be minimized when theZeitgeist is moving in a direction opposite to the position advocated by the minority.The results confirmed this prediction. Minorities were more influential whenarguing for abortion than when arguing against the death penalty.

Three alternative explanations could be offered for this finding. First, it could beargued that the subjects might have had a differential degree of commitment orinvestment in the two topics and that people are less likely to change their opinionwith regard to issues that they consider very important. A previously conductedtest, however, had indicated that the two issues, abortion and death penalty, wererated as being equally important. Secondly, it might be argued that the minorityposition was more extreme on the death penalty than on the abortion issue. Anumber of studies indicate that the extremity of the deviates position decreases themajoritys susceptability to minority influence e.g. Hensley and Duval, 1976;Nemeth er a l . , 1974). Since the subjects of the present study were selected on thebasis of their z-scores rather than absolute scores, and since the subjects mightgenerally hold more liberal attitudes towards abortion than towards the deathpenalty, the discrepancy between minority and majority opinion might have beenlarger on the death penalty issue. The analysis by subgroups, however, did notreveal any impairment of minority influence as a function of extremity of opinion.On the contrary, the more extreme the differences in opinion, the more likely werethe subjects to change their opinion. Finally, assuming that attitudes towardsabortion are relatively positive in the U.S., it is conceivable that minorities in thepositive Zeitgeist condition were perceived as representative of a majority ratherthan a minority. Considering, however, that only 40 per cent of the populationfavour abortion under conditions other than rape, incest, and threat to the womanslife National Opinion Research Center, reported in Time, April 6 1981) such anexplanation would be accurate only if subjects would dramatically overestimate theproportion of people favouring abortion. Thus, neither of the three alternativeexplanations seem very well suited to explain the obtained results.

Although the Zeitgeist notion is intuitively appealing, it is, at the present time, arather abstract concept whose underlying processes are not well understood.Unfortunately, no attempt was made in previous studies Paicheler, 1976, 1977) toidentify the processes which determine the failure of minority influence underunfavourable normative circumstances. In the present study, none of theattributional processes studies competency, self-interest, and certainty) were ableto account for differences between favourable abortion) and unfavourable norm

A Maass R . D . Clark, ZII and G aberkorn


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C a t eg o r y membership, norms and minority influence 101trend conditions (death penalty). O ne m ight hypothesize that th e meaning of theminoritys behavioural style might vary as a function of the Zeitgeist; the sameconsistent behavioural style might, for examp le, be perceived as mo re rigid as theZeitgeist becom es less favou rable to th e minority position. A lternatively, o ne mightarg ue that the Zeitgeist effect is an expression of a false consensus bias; when theZeitgeist is in favour of the majority position, subjects might overestimate theprevalence of their own opinion to a higher degree than when the Zeitgeist is infavour of the minority position. It remains for further research to identify theZeitgeist-related psychological processes which mediate success and failure of aninnovative minority.In summary, the results of the present study indicate that minority influence islikely to fail when the Zeitgeist runs counter to the innovation proposed by theminority-be it a single o r a dou ble minority. Fur the r, the results suggest that theprocesses of minority influence are somewhat different when actual minoritygroups are involved. Double minority status seems to facilitate generation ofalternative explanations for the deviates behaviour, particularly the attribution ofself-interest, thus decreasing the possibility for minority influence to occur. Thesefindings suggest tha t the results of m inority influence studies with single minoritiesmay overestimate the degree of innovative influence tha t actual minority groupsare able to exert . It remains for further research to invest igate whether thisobservation also holds tru e fo r othe r an d possibly m ore salient minorities such asBlacks o r Hispanics in th e U.S. o r guest workers in North a nd Middle Eu rop e.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe wish to than k Ha ro ld Fletcher for his statistical advice and Joh n C. Brigham,Lee B. Sechrest , and Stephen G. West for their critical comments on previousdrafts of this m anuscript.

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335-348.

RkSUMEOn a recherche de quelle manikre la compCtence perque, Iinteret personnel impute et leZeitgeist affectent Iinfluence mino ritaire ou: la theorie de M oscovici sapplique-t-elle bien ades minorites sociales rCelles (ou a des experiences sur Iinfluence minoritaire oh il estquestion d e problem es sociaux reels). La n otion dinter&t cond uit a pred ire qu e les minoritessimples (divergeant seulement quant aux croyances ou aux opinions) auront plus dinflu-ence que les minoritPs doubles (divergeant quant aux opinions et a Iappartenancecategorielle); la notion de competence conduit, elle, a la prediction inverse. En outre laminorite (simple ou do ub le) devrait avoir plus dinfluence si le Zeitgeist (la tendance dans lapopulation) va dans le sens de la position minoritaire.Cen t vingt etud iants americains de sexe masculin, conservateurs, on t kt6 distribues dan s unplan factoriel de 2 (pro/anti Zeitgeist) x 3 (minorite simple, double et groupe temoin); lesdiscussions se faisaient en grou pes de six comprenant deux co mpkres liberaux tous les deuxde sexe masculin (minorite simple) ou tous les deux de sexe ferninin (minorite d oub le);les comperes argumentaient de manitre consistente (mais flexible) sur deux themes dediscussion: Iavortement (pro Zeitgeist) et la peine de mort (anti Zeitgeist). Les resultatssont coherents avec la notion dinteret: les minorites doubles sont considerees commeayant un int6rCt personnel plus eleve dan s le sujet et elles exercent moins dinfluence que lesminorites simples (statistiquernent non significatif). Aucune minorite na eu dinfluencelorsque sa position allait con tre lopinion gknkrale ce qui confirme Ihypothese du Z eitgeist.On discute les processus dattribution sous-jacents ainsi que la validiti ecologique desrecherches precedentes dans le domaine.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGUntersuchte, ob eh er wahrgenommene Kompetenz od er wahrgenommenes Eigeninteresseund wie dariiberhinaus de r Zeitgeist den EinfluB von M inderheiten steue rn. Die A uto ren


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104 A Maass, R . D. Clark, and G Haberkornwollten darnit auch priifen, ob sich Moscovicis Theorie auf wirklich soziale Minderheitenanwenden 1aRt. Wird Eigeninteresse verrnutet, so rnussten einfache Minderheiteneinfluareicher afs zweifache sein, wird Ko mpe tenz gesehen,.so miisste da s Gegenteil gelten.Einfache Minderheiten weichen nur in den vertretenen Uberzeugungen ab, zweifachegeh oren zusatzlich einer ande ren sozialen Kategorie an. Zudern erwarteten die Au toren , d&beide Arten von Minderheiten nur dann Mehrheiten beeinflussen, wenn der Zeitgeist siebegiinstigt. In einern 2 (pro-/anti-Zeitgeist) x 3 (einfache/zweifache Minderheit/Kontroll-gru ppe ) -faktoriellen Versuchsplan bildeten 120 g e m a ig t bis stark konservative mannlichearnerikanische Collegestudenten zu je vieren mit zwei Mitwissern eine Diskussionsgruppe.Die Mitwisser, entw ede r mannlich (einfache) od er weiblich (zweifache Minderheit), vertra-ten stets die liberale Position zu den Diskussionsthernen A btreibung (p ro) oder Todesstrafe(an ti Zeitgeist). Die Ergebn isse stiitzen die Ann ahrne, daR de r Eindruck de s Eigeninteresseswirkt: die Vp n verdachtigen die zweifachen Minderheiten starker des Eigeninteresses.Zudern bewirken einfache Minderheiten starkere Einstellungsanderungen bei den Vp n alsz_weifache. Die E rgebniss e bestatigen auch die Zeitgeist-H ypoth ese. D ie Auto ren stellenUberlegungen an, welche Attribu tion en solchen Prozessen zug runde liegen und ob friihereUntersuchungen geniigend okologische Validitat besaBen.

Authorss address:An ne Maass, D epartm ent of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306,U.S.A.

european journal of social psychology volume 12 issue 1 1982

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