Serge Moscovici ^People

Born in Braila to Jewish parents who were grain merchants, Moscovic frequen-tly relocated, together with his father, spending time in Cahul, Bessarabia.He was a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and Officerof the Légion d'honneur, as well as a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.His research focus was on group psychology and he began his career by investi-gating the way knowledge is reformulated as groups take hold of it, distorting ti from its original form. His theory of social representations is now widespread in under-standing this process of cultural Chinese whispers. Influenced by Gabriel Tarde, he later criticized American research into majority influence (conformity) and instead investigated the effects of minority influence, where the opinions of a small group influence those of a larger one. He also researched the dynamics of group decisions and consensus-forming. Moscovici claimed that majority influence in many ways wasmisleading - if the majority was indeed all-powerful, we would all end up thinkingthe same. Drawing attention to the works of Gabriel Tarde, hepointed to the fact that most major social movements have been started by individuals and small groups (e.g.Christianity, Buddhism, the Suffragette movement, Nazism, etc.) and that without an outspoken minority, we would have no innovation or social change.