Abstract
The main purpose of the current study is to examine minority influence within the context of violence against women in Turkey, more specifically in a decision-making task (murder vs. suicide) regarding suspicious female deaths. The effects of women’s rights advocacy (present vs. absent), minority member gender (female vs. male), and majority group identity (in-group vs. out-group) were tested using a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design. First, two pilot studies were conducted to develop scenario and video materials for the experimental manipulation; subsequently, data were collected from 241 female university students for the main study. In all experimental conditions, the minority argued that the case was a “murder,” while the majority argued it was a “suicide.” The findings indicated that most participants evaluated the case as “murder.” Only majority group identity had a significant effect on the decision outcome: participants were significantly less likely to judge the case as “murder” when the majority group was the in-group. Additionally, impressions of minority group members were evaluated more positively than those of majority group members; at an exploratory level, this positive evaluation was particularly pronounced in the women’s rights advocate condition when the minority gender was female. However, these positive evaluations did not translate into decision outcomes. The findings are discussed within the framework of Social Identity Theory and the minority influence literature.
Keywords
Minority influence, women’s rights advocacy, social identity, suspicious female deaths, decision