ABSTRACT
That minority groups can have a powerful in¯uence on the thoughts and behaviours of members of the majority is no longer at issue in social psychology. Compelling evidence of minority in¯uence is readily available, and has been so for nearly four decades, beginning with Moscovici's seminal contributions to the literature of social in¯uence (Moscovici & Lage, 1976; Moscovici, Lage, & Naffrechoux, 1969). The pace of experimentation, theory building, and application of insights into minority in¯uence has quickened over the years (see Butera & Mugny, 2001a, 2001b; Crano & Prislin, 2006; De Dreu & De Vries, 2001; Prislin & Wood, 2005; Wood & Quinn, 2003), and has provided psychology with a model of progress. Indeed, it is arguable that Moscovici's dogged persistence in the face, initially, of disregard or outright rejection, his contention that an asymmetrical understanding of social in¯uence that focused on majority but not minority in¯uence was myopic if not illogical, and his consequent insistence on the necessity to focus on minority as well as majority in¯uence, revitalized a critical facet of social psychologyÐattitude change and social in¯uenceÐthat had lost intellectual direction and velocity (Crano, 2000a).
