Cognitive mechanism of conformity

Abstract

In my study I looked for a plausible cognitive theoretical framework for conforming behavior. The Theory of Event Coding (TEC) was the cognitive theory that offered a good basis for building this framework. I conducted an experiment using an existing study design adopted from previous studies of conformity adding a non-social condition where participants were confronted not with what they thought were other students’ choices but with random computer choices. According to TEC, a simple confrontation with an alternative behavior would affect reproduction of your own behavior at a later stage. The study results supported my theory.

Unfortunately, the results were possibly influenced by Regression to the Mean. So I changed the study design to eliminate the issue. Also I wanted to see if and how conformity was affected by culture: collectivistic versus individualistic.

This study was conducted partially in the lab (in the Netherlands and China) and partially online (in the USA and India). The results confirmed my initial hypothesis: the conformity effect did not differ across all experimental groups irrespective of the country or condition suggesting that people are sensitive to intervening events, but the social nature of these intervening events is irrelevant.