Conversation as a resource for influence: evidence for prototypical arguments and social identification processes

Members of eight single-sex groups each consisting of three pro- and three anti-capital punishment adherents discussed their views for 30 minutes, and , afterwards: individually rated ingroup and outgroup members on social inf luence ranking, prototypicality, and social attractiveness. Front the intra group hypothesis that speaking turns ale a resource for influence (Ng & Bra dac, 1993), we predicted and found that;turns were correlated strongly with influence in the intergroup context. Further, using self-categorization th eory (SCT, Turner, 1985), we hypothesized that social identity processes wo uld interact with turns, especially with turns obtained through :interrupti ons. Interruptions encoded in prototypical utterances were more strongly, c orrelated with social influence and phototypicality, but not social attract ion, than interruptions encoded in non-phototypical utterances. Further, in terruption attempts enacted in prototypical utterances were found to be mor e likely to be successful than unsuccessful in obtaining turns. while those enacted in non-prototypical utterances were more likely to be unsuccessful than successful. Additionally, interruption turns were longer when enacted in prototypical over non-prototypical utterances. Overall, the findings su ggest that the power/influence of language is interactively organized and c onstructed around salient self-categorizations. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wil ey & Sons, Ltd.