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By Varun Ramgopal, Research Affiliate at the Department of Psychology, Monk Prayogshala

What causes individuals to conform to the opinions and judgments of others? Why do they need to? When is it an advantage to merge with the group and when is it not? Investigating the social, psychological, and cultural characteristics of conformity is critical to understanding the extent to which group pressure can modify and distort individual judgment and decision-making. Substantial research, starting with Solomon Asch’s line judgment experiments, has been pursued over the last seven decades to arrive at potential explanations for people’s urge to conform to the majority, while ignoring the unambiguity of their individual perceptual judgments.

In an Asch-style social conformity experiment, seven or eight participants are seated in a room, required to perform a line-judgment task. This task entails reporting which line out of three lines shown on Card 2 is of the same length as that of a single line shown on Card 1. The correct response on each trial is meant to be unambiguous to the normal eye such that the absence of any group pressure would typically result in minimal to no erroneous responses. However, in order to test the influence of social pressure on people’s tendency to conform, these experiments typically involve a single real participant with all the other participants being instructed by the experimenter to play confederates. These confederates unanimously and deliberately disagree with the original participant on certain trials, causing the participant to be torn between their perceptual evidence and the unanimous dissent of the group.

Asch found that an appreciable percentage of individuals submitted to the majority. While interviewed following the experiment, participants who predominantly conformed indicated their lack of confidence in the evidence of their senses and greater confidence in the claims that others made. Surprisingly, there were participants who reported that they yielded to the majority despite believing with certainty that the majority dissenting was incorrect. A meta-analytic review revealed that a larger size of the majority, similarity of the respondent with the majority, a higher proportion of female participants, and a smaller average discrepancy between the original participant’s response and that of the majority were significantly and positively associated with conformity. The (greater) effort that non-conformity might involve with respect to forming individual opinions and convincing others in the group about the validity of one’s judgment could also lead to higher levels of conformity.

Cultural differences in social conformity

Studies aimed at investigating the relationship between culture and conformity have primarily focussed on making comparisons between individualistic and collectivist societies. According to Hofstede, individualistic structures entail ascribing greater importance to individual goals, self-actualization, autonomy, and uniqueness. Collectivism, on the other hand, focuses on the well-being and interdependence of social entities such as families and friendships. In a collectivist culture, the individual strives for the benefit and welfare of the social unit rather than just focusing on individual achievement. Examples of countries that have a collectivist structure in place could include Asian countries such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea, among others (MasterClass, 2022a). Countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, among other countries, are considered to have individualistic cultures (MasterClass, 2022b).

With regard to the association between culture and conformity, the hypothesis would be that higher levels of social conformity would be found in collectivist structures compared to conformity in individualistic structures. A rationale for this hypothesis would be that individuals coming from collectivist countries could be more inclined to ascribe greater importance to social opinion and blend with the majority while those from individualistic countries would be more willing to establish their autonomic decision-making abilities and uniqueness.

A meta-analysis undertaken on the replications of Asch’s line-judgment task across 17 countries confirms the hypothesis stated above: individualistic cultures exhibit lower levels of conformity than collectivist cultures. From a cultural perspective, by relating this finding to some of the moderator variables that have been found to impact conformity, one could argue that individuals from geographies that prioritize social unity may feel a greater need to conform when the size of the majority increases. Similarly, with respect to similarities between the focal participant and the majority, individuals coming from the same cultural background (in-group) would be more likely to conform with each other than with members from another cultural context (out-group).

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Other studies that have not used Asch’s line judgment experiment to investigate the cultural element of conformity also report similar findings. Comparing the choices of East Asian and British students in a lottery choice task, a study found that British students were more likely to deviate from the choices made by the majority, comprising peers. Findings from the same study also revealed that with an increase in the size of the majority, East Asian students were more likely to conform in comparison to the choices made by Australians. In another analysis using archival data sources, the authors found that the online review ratings of restaurants provided by individuals from collectivist backgrounds were in concurrence with prior ratings compared to the ratings of those coming from individualistic backgrounds.

Considering individuals’ general tendency to submit to the majority in the group pressure experiments discussed above, with cultural differences in the inclination to conform, there is one question that demands attention: Is it always detrimental to conform to social opinions? For example, in the context of health care, one would be better off consciously discerning, conforming to, and spreading information on the effectiveness of preventive health-related behaviours and vaccines rather than conforming to conspiracy theories that emerge against these beneficial preventive measures. In social contexts such as the one created in the Asch line judgment task, it may pay off to consciously remind oneself of the fact that just because one is part of the minority, it does not necessarily imply that they are incorrect. Such explicit awareness could help individuals to make rational decisions and enhance their individual fitness in an evolutionary sense.