Abstract
The power of opinions to inspire individual and collective action is well-documented in history, such as the tulip mania of Europe in the 1400s, the Salem witch trials of the 1600s, and the genocide practiced in contemporary Bosnia. But just as dramatic as the power of opinion is the speed with which opinions about values and beliefs change. For example, not too long ago, most of Eastern Europe was dominated by communist governments and a wall separated East and West Berlin. Important events illustrate both the power of opinions and their quixotic nature, but the same observations can be made about seemingly mundane things, such as hairstyles, manners, and taste in cuisine. These features of opinions can be attributed in part to the fact that they are formed through a process of comparison with others. This was demonstrated by the results of several important programs of research beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the 1950s. (1936) experimental studies of social influence, Newcomb’s (1943) field study of the changing attitudes of students at Bennington College, Asch’s(1956) conformity experiments, and Merton and Kitt’s(1950) use of the reference group concept to account for the morale of the American soldier during World War II.
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Suls, J. (2000). Opinion Comparison. In: Suls, J., Wheeler, L. (eds) Handbook of Social Comparison. The Springer Series in Social Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4237-7_6
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