When an individual's views differ from the majority view, this causes inner turmoil, motivating the individual to reduce conflict by using a comparison process, leading to compliance and public acceptance of the majority position to avoid ostracism and potential ridicule.
This often results in attitude conversion, where the individual is convinced that the minority view is correct, which is much more likely to be private rather than public.
A study by Elizabeth Mannix and Margaret Ann Neale (2005) shows that having the support from the majority leader could prove to be the critical factor in getting the minority opinion to be heard and be accepted.
The strength of the "key people" (Van Avermaet, 1996) comes from the reputation built from their consistency of behaviors and ideas.
", resulting in a tendency to reevaluate the entire situation, considering all possible alternatives, including the minority view.
More recent research[11] has supported the latter due to the belief that a minority with two or more, if consistent, has more credibility and is therefore more likely to influence the majority.
[10] The social impact model (Latané & Wolf 1981) predicts that as the size of the majority grows, the influence of the minority decreases, both in public and in private attitude change.
[12] The social impact model further explains that social impact is the multiplicative effect of strength (power, status, knowledge), the immediacy (physical proximity and recency), and the number of group members, supporting the view that a minority will be less influential on a larger majority.
Clark and Maass (1990) looked at the interaction between minority influence and majorities of varying sizes, and found that, like Latané & Wolf's findings, the minority's influence decreases in a negatively accelerating power function as the majority increases.
Similarly, Latané and Wolf cite Solomon Asch's work with "the magic number three".
Having a consistent and unwavering opinion will increase the appeal to the majority, leading to a higher chance of adaption to the minority view.
Maass & Clark (1984) arranged for a group of heterosexual participants to hear a debate on gay rights.
Asch found that regardless of the role of the "partner", the fact that the consensus was broken – even if by just one individual ("the magic number one") – was enough to reduce conformity to a majority, and add credibility to the minority view.
This is demonstrated by the correlation between private preliberation opinion and jury's final decision was .50 for rich members and .2 for laborers.
This results in the source of the minority influence that led to change being forgotten, which is known as social cryptoamnesia.
The process of dissociation is explained by social cryptoamnesia:[20] what was originally considered different is gradually constructed as an alternative (Perez, 1995).
Although minority influence may not affect a person immediately, one's beliefs and behaviors may change over time due to social cryptoamnesia.
Incorporating the concept of minority influence can encourage diversity and change in a corporate organization.
[9] In another study by Mannix and Neale, yearly performance evaluations were completed for Hispanic, African American, and Asian managers.
Their performance reviews evaluated the managers on less tangible measures related to leadership, an essential factor that is considered for receiving a promotion.
A study by Clark (1994) uses a jury setting from the film 12 Angry Men to investigate social influence.
Some of the participants were asked to just read the arguments from one of the characters (who acted as the minority), while the other group were also told how he changed the opinion of the rest of the jury.