Convergent and divergent processing of majority and minority arguments: effects on focal and related attitudes

Abstract

This research concerned attitude change towards a majority or minority position as a function of convergent and divergent message processing. Results of a 2 (majority/minority support for persuasive arguments)×3(convergent/divergent/no‐processing instructions) experiment showed that recipients identified more with a majority rather than minority, and identification was positively correlated with attitudes on the focal, but not the related issue. More importantly, results showed that in the no‐processing condition, counter‐attitudinal majority arguments produced more positive attitudes on the focal rather than related issue; minority arguments had no effects on either issue. A similar pattern emerged under convergent processing: majority support produced more positive attitudes on focal than related issues, while minority support had no effect on either issue. Divergent processing instructions, finally, produced more positive attitudes on the related issue than on the focal issue, especially in the case of minority support. Unexpectedly, majority arguments under divergent processing had no effect on focal or related attitudes whatsoever. Overall, results support the conclusion that majority arguments affect attitudes on focal issues more than on related issues because of convergent message processing, while minority arguments affect attitudes on related issues more than on focal issues because of divergent message processing and a desire to avoid identification with the source. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Majority and Minority Influence

“…In addition, minority messages were processed heuristically in attitude change contexts, whereas majority messages were processed systematically. This result was corroborated by De Dreu and De Vries (1993, 1996) and De Dreu et al (1999), who attacked established attitudes in their experiments (e.g., increasing course load in university; requiring university admission exams) and found similar variations in majority versus minority cognitive processing strategies. Their studies also consistently suggest that in attitude change contexts, minority messages may spur indirect change.…”

Motivated information processing and group decision-making: Effects of process accountability on information processing and decision quality

“…Work on minority inXuence suggests that even when the minority possesses the correct answer, oftentimes its message is ignored and individuals (continue to) side with the (erroneous) majority point of view (Kerr, 2001). Only when exogenous factors motivate to attend to the minority message will majority members realize the correctness of the minority position and alter their views (De Dreu, De Vries, Gordijn, & Schuurman, 1999;Kerr, 2001;Laughlin & Ellis, 1986). Process accountability may be one such exogenous factor, although it should be mentioned that in the present study we did not Wnd an interaction between group composition (and the presence of a single correct minority) and process accountability.…”

Role of Protein Vibration in Convergent and Divergent Thinking with Respect to Student’s Performances

“…It has been mentioned by the scholars that convergent thinking is said to devalue minority argument. It has also been shown by De Dreu and others [15] that "a pattern emerges under convergent thinking condition when presented with either majority support for persuasive arguments, produced more positive attitudes on focal issues".…”