DISTINCTIVENESS ACROSS TOPICS IN MINORITY AND MAJORITY INFLUENCE - ANATTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS AND PRELIMINARY DATA

The potential of attribution theory to explain social influence proces ses is discussed. It is suggested that distinctiveness across copies m ay be an important determinant of influence by affecting both attribut ions to a position's external validity and the positivity of attributi ons to the source. In a laboratory experiment, university students rea d about a communicator who expressed a moderately counter-attitudinal position for which consensus in the reference population was said to b e low (implying minority status) or high (implying majority status); I n addition, information about high or low distinctiveness across topic s and high or low consistency over time was provided. Open-ended attri butions and judgements about the communicator and the target issue wer e assessed. It was predicted and found that high (vs. low) distinctive ness led to more frequent topic attributions, more positive person att ributions and greater liking of the communicator. In addition, female (but nor: male) subjects reported higher ratings of persuasiveness and attitudes closer to the advocated position when distinctiveness was h igh rather than low. These preliminary results suggest that social inf luence research may benefit from studying effects of a source's distin ctiveness across topics in addition to its behavioural consistency.