Social influence: The role of originality

Two experiments used 150 undergraduates to investigate the role of message originality vs conventionality in social influence. It was hypothesized that Ss would generate more original proposals when confronted with a minority advocating an original viewpoint than when confronted with a conventional minority proposal or with an original majority proposal. Results of Exp 1 support the hypothesis. Exp 2 further demonstrated that the original message induced creative processing only when attributed to a minority source but not when attributed to a majority source. The original minority elicited creative processing mainly when paired with a conventional majority, but not when paired with a majority advocating an equally original position. Findings are interpreted in the frame of C. J. Nemeth's (see record 1986-14271-001) minority influence theory.