Minorities influence attitudes more than majorities when no prior position exists

Evidence

In a true attitude formation context, that is, one in which a strong position has not been established, these results foster the rather unusual prediction of the primacy of minority influence sources over majority sources (see also Olson & Kendrick, 2008). Crano and Hannula-Bral’s (1994) results lend support for this proposition and reemphasize the important distinction between attitude formation and attitude change, which has been noted only occasionally in previous research, but which deserves considerably more attention (Crano & Prislin, 2006; Johnson & Eagly, 1989, 1990; Walther & Langer, 2008). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1396

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the standard prejudice literature premise that majority consensus drives conformity and opinion formation; ties to Allport’s account of conformity-based prejudice.
• QUESTION: Does minority-superior influence in attitude formation contexts apply to stigmatized minorities like Muslims, or only to numerical/consensual minorities?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1396