Abstract
In recent years, an increasing number of studies has investigated majority influence in nonhuman animals. However, due to both terminological and methodological issues, evidence for conformity in nonhuman animals is scarce and controversial. Preliminary evidence suggests that wild birds, wild monkeys, and fish show conformity, that is, forgoing personal information in order to copy the majority. By contrast, chimpanzees seem to lack this tendency. The present study is the first to examine whether dogs (Canis familiaris) show conformity. Specifically, we tested whether dogs conform to a majority of conspecifics rather than stick to what they have previously learned. After dogs had acquired a behavioral preference via training (i.e., shaping), they were confronted with counter-preferential behavior of either no, one or three conspecifics. Traditional frequentist analyses show that the dogs’ behavior did not differ significantly between the three conditions. Complementary Bayesian analyses suggest that our data provide moderate evidence for the null hypothesis. In conclusion, our results suggest that dogs stick to what they have learned rather than conform to the counter-preferential behavior of others. We discuss the possible statistical and methodological limitations of this finding. Furthermore, we take a functional perspective on conformity and discuss under which circumstances dogs might show conformity after all.
Highlights
In the 1950s, the seminal studies of social psychologist Solomon Asch [1] showed that humans tend to adopt a unanimous but clearly erroneous majority opinion in a considerable number of cases, thereby suggesting that humans tend to forgo personal information by conforming to a majority
It is unknown whether they show conformity, which refers to the tendency to forgo personal information by Effects start direction condition start direction ✻ condition
Our study is the first to examine whether dogs conform to their conspecifics’ behavior rather than stick to what they have previously learned
Summary
In the 1950s, the seminal studies of social psychologist Solomon Asch [1] showed that humans tend to adopt a unanimous but clearly erroneous majority opinion in a considerable number of cases, thereby suggesting that humans tend to forgo personal information by conforming to a majority (cf. [2]). This classic “Asch-effect” was replicated across different cultures and age levels [3,4] and provoked a larger number of further investigations on majority influence in humans [5].
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