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This study examined minority influence within virtual groups and how members' geographic dispersion and argument consistency affect group decisions. Competing predictions were derived from several theories that were applicable but untested in the domain of online interaction: a double minority effect, the black sheep effect, congruity theory applied to groups, and the minority leniency contract framework. Online groups were created that had 4 collocated members or 4 geographically distributed members, or 2 collocated and 2 isolated members. Group members were provided biased distributions of information resembling a hidden profile to facilitate majority and minority positions resulting in 24 groups with a minority opinion holder geographically isolated or in proximity with one or more other members. The patterns of minority members' influence on majority members' decisions lent greatest support to the black sheep effect, congruity, and minority leniency approaches, depending on the respective location of the minority opinion holders and the consistency with which they argued their positions.

Much research has demonstrated the power of social norms to affect proenvironmental behavior and conservation-related attitudes and beliefs in traditional "offline" social contexts. With the emergence of social media and citizen science platforms that allow for socially coordinated conservation efforts at scale comes a need to better understand the influence of social norms in online contexts. The present experiment explored effects of norm violations on impression formation and intergroup judgments within the context of Habitat Network, a socially networked mapping application where users create and share virtual representations (maps) of their properties. Results revealed that when participants viewed a map depicting the violation of a strongly held group norm—namely, the presence of an outdoor (vs. indoor) pet cat—they judged the map owner as significantly less likely to engage in a variety of proenvironmental behaviors. Importantly, this effect emerged despite evidence that the owner was already engaging in various sustainable practices. Moreover, the effect was mediated by the perceived quality of wildlife habitat represented by the map and moderated by participants' group membership status (as a cat owner) in a manner consistent with theories of impression formation and intergroup judgments. We discuss implications for social cognition and intergroup relations in proenvironmental online contexts.