Abstract
Why would people conform more to others with higher social positions? People may place higher confidence in the opinions of those who rank higher in the social hierarchy, or they may wish to make better impressions on people of higher social status. We investigated how individual preferences for novel stimuli are influenced by the preferences of others in the social hierarchy and whether anonymity affects such preference changes. After manipulation of their social rank, participants were asked to indicate how much they liked or disliked a series of images. Then, they were shown the rating given to each image by a partner (either inferior or superior in social rank) and were given a chance to adjust their ratings. The participants were more likely to change their preferences to match those of a superior partner in the public vs. private condition. The tendency to conform to the views of the superior partner was stronger among those with higher social dominance orientation (SDO) and those with greater fear of negative evaluation (FNE) by others. Altogether, the findings suggest that the motivation to make better impressions on people of higher social status can be the major driver of conformity to others with higher social positions.
Highlights
Most people belong to one or more groups that have a social hierarchy, and they often pay attention to social hierarchies within a group so as to succeed in social interaction, personal performance, and adaptation to the group (Chiao et al, 2004)
The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that the changes in preferences of the participants regarding the fractal images were influenced by the social rank of the partner [F(1, 59) = 27.48, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.32]; guarantee of anonymity [F(1, 59) = 25.63, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.3]; and preference of the partner
We adopted and modified the social conformity paradigm used in previous studies (Galinsky et al, 2008; Klucharev et al, 2009; Izuma and Adolphs, 2013) to test the hypothesis
Summary
Most people belong to one or more groups that have a social hierarchy, and they often pay attention to social hierarchies within a group so as to succeed in social interaction, personal performance, and adaptation to the group (Chiao et al, 2004). People adjust their preferences, attitudes, and behaviors to conform to the norms of a group (Cialdini and Goldstein, 2004) as a means of benefiting their social and physical welfare within the group, because social hierarchy profoundly affects the welfare of both animals and humans (Sapolsky, 2004). Qi et al (2018) found that people were more likely to conform to a high-reputation than a low-reputation collaborator
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