Minority Influence is Facilitated when the Communication Employs Linguistic Abstractness

An experiment tested the hypothesis that minority influence is enhanced when the source of a persuasive communication employs abstract, as opposed to concrete, language. This hypothesis and the research testing it links ideas from two heretofore separate areas of inquiry: minority influence and linguistic abstraction. It is well known that minority influence increases when the minority is perceived to be consistent. Work on linguistic abstraction has established that when abstract language is used to describe an act, it implies that the act reflects stable, trans-situational characteristics of the actor, whereas concrete language implies that the act reflects isolated, situationally bounded events. We suggest that abstract language therefore conveys greater conviction and thereby increases perceived consistency and, in turn, minority influence. Source (majority, minority) and language abstractness (abstract, concrete) of a persuasive communication were manipulated. Results revealed that a minority (but not a majority) source was seen as more consistent when using abstract (vs. concrete) language. Although there were no differences among conditions on direct influence, a statistically significant interaction was observed for indirect influence: the abstract-minority source had significantly more indirect influence than did the concrete-minority source, whereas the indirect influence of the majority communicator was not affected by language abstractness