Majority and Minority Influence Societal Meaning and Cognitive Elaboration Current Issues in Social Psychology Series

Majority and minority influence research examines how groups influence the attitudes, thoughts and behaviours of individuals, groups and society as a whole. This volume collects recent work by an international group of scholars, representing a variety of different theoretical approaches to majority and minority influence.

The book provides a thorough evaluation of significant current developments with a particular focus on how active minorities can influence people?s thinking and behaviour, fight against conformity and contribute to real social change. It also discusses the following themes:

• Social vs. cognitive processes of social influence: cooperation vs. antagonism
• Majority and minority influence: a singular or a dual socio-psychological process?
• Conversion vs appropriation of minority ideas
• Different meta-theoretical considerations underlying social influence research

New avenues for future research are presented and many are born from a new integration between influence and persuasion theoretical traditions.

By focusing on the societal dimension of social influence this book contributes to filling a theoretical and epistemological gap in the relative literature. It offers a balanced and thorough presentation of the distinct theoretical and epistemological approaches employed by active and important researchers in the field making it essential reading for researchers and upper-level students of social psychology.

1. Introduction - Antonis Gardikiotis, Gerasimos Prodromitis, Stamos Papastamou 2. Conversion to active minorities: the chronicle of a successful theory and the uncertain result of a minority influence attempt - Stamos Papastamou, Antonis Gardikiotis, Gerasimos Prodromitis 3. The context/comparison model of majority and minority influence: different processes, different outcomes - William D. Crano 4. Multiple categorizations and minority influence: an integration of dissociation and self-categorization theories - Alain Quiamzade, Gabriel Mugny, Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor, Juan Antonio Pérez 5. Majority versus minority source status and persuasion: processes of primary and secondary cognition - Javier Horcajo, Pablo Briñol, Richard E. Petty 6. Attitude persistence to persuasive messages: as a function of numerical majority versus minority source status - Robin Martin, Miles Hewstone 7. Mind over matter: target states, not stimulus characteristics, determine information processing in minority influence - Deborah F. Hellmann, Nina Dickel, Gerd Bohner, Hans-Peter Erb 8. Influencing people’s (negative) attitudes towards active minorities: the case of feminist movements - Fabrizio Butera, Jean-Pierre Vernet , Jorge Vala 9. A case for diversity in research on minority influence - Radmila Prislin, Marisa Crowder, Kristin Donnelly 10. Conclusions - Gerasimos Prodromitis, Stamos Papastamou, Antonis Gardikiotis

Stamos Papastamou is Professor of Experimental Social Psychology at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece.

Antonis Gardikiotis is Associate Professor of Social Psychology and the Mass Media at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Gerasimos Prodromitis is Associate Professor of Experimental Social Psychology at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece.