ABSTRACT
This chapter describes experimental research providing empirical evidence congruent with this hypothesis. It focuses on opinion tasks, specifically in relation to minority influence, disregarding the comparison between minority and majority influence. It argues that they can be integrated and lead to a more comprehensive understanding of minority influence. The chapter outlines the respective views of the some theories. It presents the existing results and how each side addresses those contradicting their point of view. It proposes the notion of multiple categorizations as opposed to single ingroup vs outgroup categorization, and advance a new integrative hypothesis as well as a possible mathematical model. Self-categorization theory aims to offer a single general explanation of social influence. This theory, insofar as it extends social identity theory, deals with variations in self-categorization and provides an account of how group processes and group behaviour are linked to the shift from self-perception in terms of a personal identity to self-perception in terms of a social identity.
