Matt Jones found this little nugget in the Feburary 2003 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
The Minority Slowness Effect: Subtle Inhibitions in the Expression of Views Not Shared by Othersvia David Smith
Five studies revealed that people who hold the minority opinion express that opinion less quickly than people who hold the majority opinion. The difference in speed in the expression of the minority and majority opinions grew as the difference in the size of the minority and majority grew. Also, those with the minority view were particularly slow when they assumed the majority to be large, whereas the opposite was true for those with the majority view. The minority slowness effect was not found to be linked to attitude strength, nor was it influenced by anticipated public disclosure of the attitude.
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Comments (1)
Very true, Johnnie. And since I frequently find myself in the minority with being the corporate loudmouth at work, I do hold back, or at least notice myself doing so. There’s this sense that I want to be doubly sure that I understand the majority view, that there isn’t a nugget in there that I agree with to use as a point of consensus to springboard the argument. I had considered it strange how some of us react that way but, it seems, it is quite normal.
October 13, 2008 12:01 Permalink for comment