Exposure to dissent and recall of information.

Recent work on minority influence has led to a debate about whether majorities and minorities exercise different forms of influence. Nemeth (1986) has argued that consistent minorities induce different cognitive processes than do consistent majorities, with a resulting impact on the quality of the judgments rendered. Two experiments test his theory. In Experiment 1, Ss heard 3 tape-recorded lists of words and learned that either a minority or a majority differed in the category "first noticed." This feedback occurred either once or over 3 trials. When exposure was once, recall was not affected by the source; when it was consistent, Ss exposed to the minority view recalled more words than those xposed to the majority view. In Experiment 2, Ss were exposed to a minority view that was either consistent over time or inconsistent over time. Ss exposed to a consistent minority had better recall than control Ss. Exposure to an inconsistent minority did not improve recall. The results offer support for the Nemeth (1986) formulation. For many years, research on social influence processes was dominated by the study of conformity. Sheriffs (1935) and Asch's (1951, 1956) seminal work showed the power of the ma-jority to induce movement toward or adoption of its position