Content area
Full Text
Most experiments on conformity have been conducted in relation to judgments of physical reality; surprisingly few papers have experimentally examined the influence of group norms on social issues with a moral component. In response to this, participants were told that they were either in a minority or in a majority relative to their university group in terms of their attitudes toward recognition of gay couples in law (Expt 1: N = 205) and a government apology to Aborigines (Expt 2: N = 110). In both experiments, it was found that participants who had a weak moral basis for their attitude conformed to the group norm on private behaviours. In contrast, those who had a strong moral basis for their attitude showed non-conformity on private behaviours and counter-conformity on public behaviours. Incidences of non-conformity and counter-conformity are discussed with reference to theory and research on normative influence.
Not only is there widespread consensus among many diagnosticians of the climate of our times that this is an age of conformity; the relevant psychological literature is almost unanimous in its emphasis on conditions accounting for conformity. Actually, there is, of course, ample evidence for the existence of independence not only in common-sense observations but also in every single experiment which rejects the null-hypothesis of independence . . . There is a tacit implication in many of these experiments that those insubordinate subjects who are outside the hypothesis-confirming majority are a nuisance (Jahoda, 1959, p. 99).
In the above quote, Jahoda (1959) criticizes the over-emphasis placed in the psychological literature on themes of conformity, an emphasis that obscures the reality of non-conformity and counter-conformity. This sentiment was later reinforced by Moscovici and colleagues (e.g. Moscovici, 1976; Moscovici & Faucheux, 1972), who made a concerted effort to shine a stronger theoretical light on the reality of activism, deviance, and dissent. However, over 40 years following Jahoda's comments, we still know far more about group conformity than we do about the psychological processes underlying group defiance.
In this paper we examine some conditions under which we might expect defiance, rather than compliance, to group norms. Central to this paper is a critical examination of normative influence; that is, the notion that people are more likely to conform to group norms...