SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2001, 29(7), 701-710 © Society for Personality Research DOI 10.2224/sbp.2001.29.7.701 BEHAVIORAL STYLE PREFERENCES OF MINORITY AND MAJORITY MEMBERS WHO ANTICIPATE GROUP INTERACTION ALAIN VAN HIEL AND IVAN MERVIELDE Ghent University, Belgium In the present research we investigated whether prospective minority and majority members ascribe high effectiveness to particular behavioral styles in order to exert social influence in a forthcoming group interaction. It was hypothesized that consistency, assertiveness, competence, and honesty would be rated as effective for minorities, whereas the role of agreeableness would be stressed for majorities. A behavioral-style inventory based on that developed by Bassili and Provencal (1988) showed sufficient reliability. The results confirmed the hypotheses, and the implications of the actor-perspective on social influence are discussed. Keywords: consistency, flexibility, minority influence, personality traits, rigidity Stimulated by the work of Moscovici (1985) on minority influence, social psy- chologists have shown increasing interest in how minority messages shape a tar- get’s opinion. The typical study on minority influence presented a minority source advocating a single influence appeal to a lone target (Wood, Lundgren, Ouellette, Busceme, & Blackstone, 1994). This research tradition thus focused on the reception-side of social-influence, though in some recent work minority preparation for group discussion has been considered (Levine & Russo, 1995; Van Hiel, in press; Zdaniuk & Levine, 1996), as well as minority influence in freely interacting groups in which participants are subjected to reciprocal influ- ence (Gruenfeld, Thomas-Hunt, & Kim, 1998; McLeod, Baron, Marti, & Yoon, _________ Alain Van Hiel and Ivan Mervielde, Department of Developmental and Personality Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium. Appreciation is due to reviewers including: Dr. Raymond J. Green, Department of Psychology and Special Education, Texas A & M - Commerce, TX, USA; Dr. J. N. Bassili, Department of Psychology, Scarborough College, Ontario, Canada. Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Alain Van Hiel, Department of Developmental and Personality Psychology, Henri Dunantlaan, 2, B-9000, Ghent, Belgium. Phone: 00-32-09-264 6425; Fax: 00- 32-09-264 6499; Email: alain.vanhiel@rug.ac.be 701