Abstract

Many social scientists view the minority as the engine of creativity and social change. This presentation is designed to present an overview of social psychological research into minority influence, to answer the question, ?How does the minority prevail?? The presentation reviews original social psychological research that established the outlines of a theory of minority influence and extends the research to considerations of persuasion in applied contexts ? politics (the Obama campaign), organizational behavior (Microsoft?s entry into the world of the Internet), etc. Ultimately, ?rules of influence? will be distilled from this consideration of research and practice. The rules are conditioned on the assumption that the agent of influence has no power to compel the audience to attend to its message, and thus extend beyond traditional theories of persuasion.

Reference

Bill Crano (Claremont Graduate University), “Influence from weakness: How the minority prevails”, IAST General Seminar, Toulouse: IAST, January 26, 2012, 15:30–17:00, room MF323.