Hesitation in communication : does minority status delay responses?
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Asian Journal of Social Psychology
Publication Date
9-1-2013
Volume
16
Issue
3
First Page
238
Last Page
248
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
Keywords
comprehension, inhibition process, minority-slowness effect, utterance directness
Abstract
Past studies indicated that people in a minority (vs. majority) position are slower to express their public/political opinion, and the larger the difference between the size of the two positions, the slower the response. Bassili termed this the minority- slowness effect (MSE). In the current study, two experiments were conducted to demonstrate that MSE extends to people's understanding of utterances and explored the cognitive basis for this. Participants were asked to judge if an utterance is a ` direct' or an ` indirect' expression. The results show that participants in the minority (vs. majority) took longer to respond, and the larger the difference between the size of majority and minority, the longer the response latency (Study 1a). Furthermore, participants were aware of their own minority position (Study 1b). In Study 2, when participants were deprived of cognitive resources, MSE disappeared, presumably because participants lack the cognitive resources required to conform to utterance interpretation as favoured by the majority.
DOI
10.1111/ajsp.12028
Print ISSN
13672223
E-ISSN
1467839X
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd with the Asian Association of Social Psychology and the Japanese Group Dynamics Association
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Yeung, V. W. L., Lau, I. Y. M., & Chiu, C. Y. (2013). Hesitation in communication: Does minority status delay responses? Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(3), 238-248. doi: 10.1111/ajsp.12028