Minority Influence & Group Performance

1. Minority Influence & Group Performance March 9, 2006

2. Toward A Unitary Theory? • Prevailing view that majority and minority influence are the same. • Minority influence is a weak form. • Both types of influence driven by “numbers.” • Focus on who “wins.” • Moscovici suggested that the two forms of influence are actually very different. • Majority influence leads to compliance but minority influence leads to conversion. • Necessary to consider outcomes more subtle than “who wins.”

3. Further Evidence that Minority Influence is Unique • Nemeth (1986) argues that majority and minority influence can also be distinguished by the way they make people think. • Nemeth focused on another outcome that is unrelated to who eventually “wins.” • Focus in this theory on convergent versus divergent thinking.

4. Convergent versus Divergent Thinking • Divergent thinking: Thinking that moves outward from a problem in many possible directions. • Example: Brainstorming • Convergent thinking: Thinking that proceeds toward one single answer. • Example: An arithmetic problem.

5. Divergent Thinking: Illustration • Question: List all the uses for a brick. • Convergent Thinking: Use the brick to build a bridge, to build a house, to build a barbeque, to build a castle in the sky. • All ideas involve using the brick to build something therefore they are all conceptually similar to one another. • Divergent Thinking: Use the brick to kill someone, to prop open a door, as a topic of conversation, to cast a shadow. • Each idea is conceptually different from the last.

6. Minority Influence and Divergent Thinking OPTIMAL AROUSAL (1). People experience less arousal when exposed to a minority— enough to be motivated but not enough to panic. INCREASED CURIOSITY (2). When faced with a consistent minority people are motivated to understand their position (How can they be so wrong yet so confident?) and in doing so, they see an issue from many different perspectives. They can’t be right, so I will look for alternatives. INCREASED CONFLICT (3). Minority opinions are not adopted quickly and the conflict that ensues will force people to think more carefully about an issue.

7. Experimental Evidence • Study of creative word associations as a result of majority versus minority influence. • All subjects shown blue slides and a confederate consistently called these slides green. • Majority Condition: Subjects told that most people would agree with the confederate. • Minority Condition: Subjects told that most people would disagree with the confederate.

8. Outcome: Creativity • Past research focused on whether the majority/minority could get people to say blue slides were green either in the immediate situation or at a later point in time. Who won? • Nemeth experiment focused instead on creative word associations. • Example: When I say the word green what do you think of? (1) Grass, (2) Money, (3) Ralph Nader. • People have statistically verified which associations are typical (e.g. Grass) and which associations are atypical (e.g. Ralph Nader).

9. Results • Subjects asked to give word associations both for the word “green” and the word “blue.” • Subjects in the majority condition gave significantly less original associations to the words green and blue. • Subjects in the minority condition gave significantly more original associations to the words green and blue.

10. What to the results mean? • Exposure to a unanimous majority that disagrees with you creates excessive stress that narrows your thinking and makes you less creative. • Exposure to a minority leads to re-appraisal and a more open minded consideration of alternatives. • Again, the two forms of influence differ.

11. Research in the Field • Important question of generalizability. Do these results hold in the real world? • Study of majority/minority influence in the Supreme Court. • Some theorists argue that open mindedness depends on ideology. Liberals believed to be more open minded than conservatives. • Question: Does majority versus minority status matter more than ideology in predicting open mindedness?

12. Minority Influence on the Supreme Court • Studies of political decision making have shown that conservatives interpret policies in less complex ways than do liberals. • Integrative Complexity: Viewing an issue in black and white versus shades of gray. One right answer versus many possible right answers (one the one hand, on the other hand). • Problem: Political ideology was systematically confounded with status such that conservatives in these studies were also more often in the minority.

13. Result: Ideology Does Not Matter • Content analysis of all supreme court decisions (and dissenting opinions) from 1953-1990. RESULTS (1). Dissenting opinions were simple (an indicator of convergent thinking). (2). Majority opinions were complex (an indicator of divergent thinking). (3). Once majority/minority status was accounted for ideology did not have any effect.

14. Implications of the Theory • Minorities are not the ones thinking in a creative way, instead they are stimulating the majority to think in a more creative way. • Minority dissent even when wrong is of value because it makes a group more creative. • Contrast with “Value in Diversity” hypothesis. Minority viewpoints are not of value because of the content of what they have to say but rather because of the productive conflict that occurs when you engage them in a debate.

15. Practical Applications • Theory has been applied to at least 2 important areas in organizations. GROUP CREATIVITY: • Groups who think divergently are able to generate more novel and original ideas and ultimately come up with more creative solutions. A foundation for understanding innovation. GROUP DECISION MAKING • Decision making groups often “rush” toward a premature agreement without considering all the available alternatives. Therefore, minority influence can improve the quality of group decision making by leading a group to consider more alternatives prior to making a decision.

16. Cloning Dissent: Devil’s Advocate • Clearly organizations should encourage dissent, but there are also disadvantages (e.g. cohesion, morale). • Can an organization encourage dissent without experiencing any drawbacks? (Nemeth, et al, 2001) • Devil’s Advocate: Dissent can be role-played by asking one person to disagree with a proposal.

17. Devil’s Advocate Experiment • Subjects asked to make a decision about rewarding money in a personal injury case. • Case: Washing machine repairman who was injured on the job. His lost wages and medical bills were paid, but he was suing his employer for pain and suffering. • Award: (1) $1-$75K (2) $75K to 150K up to (8) more than $525K. • Most people would award either (1) or (2).

18. Procedure • One member of the group was asked to: Devil’s Advocate • Play the role of devil’s advocate by taking a position contrary to the group’s decision. The entire group knew the person was instructed to take this role. Authentic Dissent • One person was asked to take a position of high compensation to the victim without the group knowing of these instructions.

19. Results • Authentic Dissent: People generated more original arguments in favor of their position that went beyond the information given and anticipated more counter-arguments. • Devil’s Advocate: People generated more arguments in favor of their own position without taking into account other perspectives on the issue. Bottom Line: The Devil’s Advocate can actually make things worse!

20. Recapitulate • Dissent stimulates the group to think divergently, to be more creative, to make better decisions. • These effects are independent of the group’s political ideology. • Authentic dissent cannot easily be “cloned” using techniques such as the Devil’s Advocate.

21. Tuesday • Transition from learning basic theories of social influence to understanding how these theories have been applied in organizational behavior. • Consider the tradeoffs involved in using social influence tactics. • Begin with social influence in employee socialization.