Studies of reasoning by majority and minority members show that group members in the majority think more about the trade-offs associated with alternative decision outcomes than do group members in the minority, who are more single-minded in support of their own position. However, prior work has not examined whether this holds when decision makers change the status quo. The authors compared the integrative complexity of U.S. Supreme Court justices writing on behalf of either a majority or a minority in decisions to either uphold or overturn legal precedent. As predicted, justices writing on behalf of decisions to uphold precedent exhibited greater integrative complexity than did justices writing on behalf of decisions to overturn precedent, but this effect was stronger for the authors of majority than minority opinions.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baker-Brown, G. , Ballard, E. J., Bluck, S., DeVries, B., Suedfeld, P., & Tetlock, P. E. (1992). The conceptual/integrative complexity scoring manual. In C. Smith (Ed.), Motivation and personality: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 401-418). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
2.
Baum, L. (1989). The Supreme Court (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: C. Q. Press.
3.
Brehm, S. S. , & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.
4.
Brenner, S. , & Spaeth, J. (1995). Stare indecisis: The alteration of precedent on the Supreme Court, 1946-1992. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
5.
DeCarlo, D. T. , & Gruenfeld, D. H. (1989). Stress in the American workplace: Alternatives for the working wounded. Fort Washington, PA: LRP Publications.
6.
Geen, R. G. (1989). Alternative conceptions of social facilitation. In P. B. Paulus (Ed.), Psychology of group influence (2nd ed., pp. 15-51). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
7.
Gruenfeld, D. H. (1995). Status, ideology and integrative complexity on the U.S. Supreme Court: Rethinking the politics of political decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(1), 5-20.
8.
Gruenfeld, D. H. , Thomas-Hunt, M. C., & Kim, P. (1998). Cognitive flexibility, communication strategy, and integrative complexity: Public and private reactions to majority and minority status. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 34, 202-226.
9.
Habermas, J. (1975). Legitimation crisis. Boston: Beacon.
10.
Harvey, O. J. , Hunt, D. E., & Schroder, H. M. (1967). Conceptual systems and personality organization. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
11.
Janis, I. (1972). Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
12.
Kaarbo, J. , & Levine, J. L. (1998, June). The role of minorities in political decision-making groups. Paper presented at the Conference on Organizational Learning and Knowledge Transfer, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
13.
Keltner, D. , & Robinson, R. J. (1997). Defending the status quo: Power and bias in social conflict. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(10), 1066-1077.
14.
Maass, A. , & Clark, R. D. (1984). Hidden impact of minorities: Fifteen years of minority influence research. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3), 428-450.
15.
Maass, A. , Clark, R. D., & Haberkorn, G. (1982). The effects of differential ascribed category membership and norms on minority influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 12(1), 89-104.
16.
McGrath, J. E. , & Gruenfeld, D. H. (1993). Toward a dynamic and systemic theory of groups: An integration of six temporally enriched perspectives. In M. Chemers & R. Syman (Eds.), Leadership theory and research: Perspectives and directions (pp. 217-243). New York: Academic Press.
17.
Moscovici, S. (1980). Toward a theory of conversion behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 209-239). New York: Academic Press.
18.
Nemeth, C. J. (1986). Differential contributions of majority and minority influence. Psychological Review, 93, 23-32.
19.
Nemeth, C. J. , & Rogers, J. (1996). Dissent and the search for information. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35(1), 67-76.
20.
Nemeth, C. J. , & Staw, B. M. (1989). The tradeoffs of social control and innovation in groups and organizations. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 22, pp. 175-210). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
21.
Nemeth, C. J. , & Wachtler, J. (1983). Creative problem solving as a result of majority and minority influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 13, 45-55.
22.
Ng, S. H. , & Cram, F. (1987). Polarization of ingroup bias in secure and insecure groups. Journal of Social Psychology, 127, 589-594.
23.
Ng, S. H. , & Cram, F. (1988). Intergroup bias by defensive and offensive groups in majority and minority conditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 239-255.
24.
Ocasio, W. (1995). The enactment of economic adversity: A reconciliation of theories of failure-induced change and threat-rigidity. Research in Organizational Behavior, 17, 287-331.
25.
Paicheler, G. (1976). Norms and attitude change: I. Polarization and styles of behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 6, 405-427.
26.
Peterson, R. S. , & Nemeth, C. J. (1996). Focus versus flexibility: Majority and minority influence can both improve performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(1), 14-23.
27.
Ritov, I. , & Baron, J. (1990). Reluctance to vaccinate: Omission bias and ambiguity. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 3(4), 263-277.
28.
Smith, C. M. , Tindale, R. S., & Dugoni, B. L. (1996). Minority and majority influence in freely interacting groups: Qualitative versus quantitative differences. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35(1), 137-150.
29.
Spaeth, H. J. (1993, September). United States Supreme Court judicial database: 1953-1989 terms. Inter-university consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR 9422, 3rd release).
30.
Spranca, M. , Minsk, E., & Baron, J. (1991). Omission and commission in judgment and choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27(1), 76-105.
31.
Staub, A. B. (1991). Individual differences in integrative complexity: A group influence hypothesis. Unpublished undergraduate honor’s thesis, Harvard College.
32.
Staw, B. M. , Sandelands, L. E., & Dutton, J. E. (1981). Threat-rigidity effects in organizational behavior: A multilevel analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, 501-524.
33.
Suedfeld, P. (1992). Bilateral relations between countries and the complexity of newspaper editorials. Political Psychology, 13(4), 601-611.
34.
Suedfeld, P. , & Tetlock, P. E. (1977). Integrative complexity of communications in international crises. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 21, 169-184.
35.
Suedfeld, P. , Tetlock, P. E., & Streufert, S. (1992). Conceptual/integrative complexity. In C. Smith (Ed.), Motivation and personality: Hand-book of thematic content analysis (pp. 401-418). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
36.
Tetlock, P. E. (1981). Preto post-election shifts in presidential rhetoric: Impression management or cognitive adjustment?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 207-212.
37.
Tetlock, P. E. (1983). Cognitive style and political ideology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 118-126.
38.
Tetlock, P. E. (1984). Cognitive style and political belief systems on the British House of Commons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 365-375.
39.
Tetlock, P. E. , Armor, D., & Peterson, R. S. (1994). The slavery debate in antebellum America: Cognitive style, value conflict, and the limits of compromise. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(1), 115-126.
40.
Tetlock, P. E. , Bernzweig, J., & Gallant, J. L. (1985). Supreme Court decision making: Cognitive style as a predictor of ideological consistency of voting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1127-1239.
41.
Tetlock, P. E. , & Boettger, R. (1994). Accountability amplifies the status quo effect when change creates victims. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 7(1), 1-23.
42.
Tetlock, P. E. , Hannum, K. A., & Micheletti, P. M. (1984). Stability and change in the complexity of senatorial debate: Testing the cognitive versus rhetorical style hypotheses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(5), 979-990.
43.
Tetlock, P. E. , Skitka, L., & Boettger, R. (1989). Social and cognitive strategies of coping with accountability: Conformity, complexity, and bolstering. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 632-641.
44.
Wood, W. , Lundgren, S., Ouellete, J. A., Busceme, S., & Blackstone, T. (1994). Minority influence: A meta-analytic review of social influence processes. Psychological Bulletin, 115(3), 323-345.
