Serge Moscovici’s work

We organized recently an international workshop in Greece, to confront our ideas about two major theories of Serge Moscovici. The theory of social representations (1961) and the theory of minority influence (1976). It was a question of tracing the perspectives of the legacy he had left us. This book is the collective trace of this work. It is organized in three parts. The first part deals with the epistemic and theoretical questions raised by Serge Moscovici’s work. It begins with a historical reminder of his contribution to the formation of the European Association of Social Psychology. The second part of the book presents recent developments in the theory of minority influence. The actual and potential developments of this theory is discussed. The third part is devoted to the theory of social representations. The topics discussed show that this theory has become a reference theory in social sciences for the analysis of societal issues. One could see in this book a form of homage to the work of Serge Moscovici. But it should above all be seen as a tribute to the liveliness and relevance of the theories he has bequeathed to us.

Conformist social learning inoculates against adverse risk aversion

Given the ubiquity of potentially adverse biases incurred by trial-and-error learning, it seems paradoxical that improvements in decision-making performance through conformist social learning, a process widely considered to be bias amplification, still prevail in animal behaviour. Here we show, through model analyses and online experiments with 467 adult human subjects, that conformity can promote favourable risk taking in repeated decision making, even though many individuals are systematically biased towards suboptimal risk aversion owing to the myopia of reinforcement learning. Although positive feedback conferred by conformity could result in suboptimal informational cascades, our dynamic model of behaviour identified a key role for negative feedback that arises when a weak minority influence undermines the inherent behavioural bias. This ‘collective behavioural rescue’, emerging through coordination of positive and negative feedback, highlights a benefit of social learning in a broader range of environmental conditions than previously assumed and resolves the ostensible paradox of adaptive collective flexibility through conformity.

Basal Testosterone Renders Individuals More Receptive to Minority Positions

Social influence is an inevitable part of human social interaction. Although past research has demonstrated that testosterone has a key role in social interaction, no study has examined its role in social influence so far. Building on previous research showing that minority positions are perceived as risky options and that testosterone is positively associated with status seeking and risk-taking, we hypothesized that basal testosterone renders individuals more receptive to minority positions. In two studies, participants (total N = 250) read messages that were supported by either a numerical majority or minority. As hypothesized, individuals’ levels of basal testosterone were positively related to susceptibility to minority influence. In contrast, susceptibility to majority influence was unaffected by basal testosterone. Given the importance of minorities for innovation and change within societies, our results suggest that individuals with high levels of testosterone may play an important role as catalysts of social change.