SOCIAL IDENTITY AND LEVELS OF INFLUENCE - WHEN A POLITICAL MINORITY FAILS

A longitudinal field study was conducted to examine direct and indirect influence amongst minority and majority factions of a political party. The context was provided by the 1988 leadership contest in the British Labour Party in which a left‐wing minority challenged the majority of the party. Two postal questionnaires sent to a panel of 136 respondents — supporters of both the minority and the majority — examined attitude change over the course of the campaign and tested the cognitive‐attributional, identity and dependency mechanisms associated with this attitude change. Findings showed that the majority polarized away from the minority on both direct and indirect measures, whilst the minority polarized away from the majority on direct measures but moved closer towards the majority on indirect measures. Analysis of the correlates of attitude change showed a complex relationship between identification and influence. In particular, perceptions of common identity were negatively related to the acceptance of direct majority influence and positively related to the acceptance of indirect majority influence. Present findings are compared with findings from laboratory studies and reasons for the differences are discussed. 1990 The British Psychological Society