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Just Going Along: Nonconscious Priming and Conformity to Social Pressure

https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1999.1390Get rights and content

Abstract

This research investigates whether conformity can be elicited or suppressed by nonconscious priming. In Experiment 1, participants were primed for either conformity or nonconformity using a scrambled sentences task and later placed into a conformity situation. As predicted, participants primed with conformity expressed views that were more similar to those of experimental confederates than did participants primed with nonconformity. To investigate whether the influence of the primes was symmetric, Experiment 2 included a neutral prime condition. Participants primed with conformity again tended to conform more than those in the other two groups, but the nonconformity primes did not induce participants to rebel against the group norm. Discussion focuses on the asymmetry in the effectiveness of the conformity and nonconformity primes.

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This research was supported by Research Grant SBR9319558 from the National Science Foundation. We are grateful to David Dunning, Dennis Reagan, and Michael Spivey for commenting on an earlier draft of the manuscript and to Trey Billings, Kirsten Enterlin, Julie Gallagher, Andy Minor, David Rosen, and Tyler Story for their assistance with the research. Portions of this research were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, 1997, Washington, DC.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Nicholas Epley or Thomas Gilovich, Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Uris Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected].

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