Introduction

Recent social influence theorising (Moscovici, 1976, 1980) departs from the assumption that the two major influence modalities – innovation and conformity – involve different processes and produce divergent behavioural effects. It has been assumed that majorities would elicit a social comparison process, direct a person's attention to the interpersonal relations and produce compliance effects. Minorities on the other hand would trigger a judgment validation process, direct a person's attention to the object of judgment and produce conversion effects. Empirical support for this line of thought can be found in numerous studies which show that majorities exert more influence on public responses than minorities, whereas the reverse holds with respect to private or latent responses (Lage 1973; Mugny, 1974–5, 1976; Moscovici & Lage, 1976; Nemeth, 1976; Moscovici & Personnaz, 1980).

Paradoxical as it may seem, part of the very same evidence may serve as a point of departure for an alternative conception of the relation between innovation and conformity, namely one that stresses their similarities rather than their differences. The present chapter intends to re-analyse existing data from this perspective and it will also introduce some new empirical evidence. It invites the reader seriously to consider an emerging parallel between both influence processes, at least with respect to their public effects.

A first section of this chapter will briefly recapitulate our earlier efforts to re-analyse the current operationalisation of the comparison between both influence processes from the perspective of the literature on the role of social support within social influence contexts.