Conformity to the descriptive norms of people with opposing political or social beliefs.

ABSTRACT: The descriptive norm effect refers to findings that individuals will tend to prefer behaving certain ways when they know that other people behave similarly. An open question is whether individuals will still conform to other people's behaviour when they do not identify with these other people, such as a Democrat being biased towards following a popular behaviour amongst Republicans. Self-categorization theory makes the intuitive prediction that people will actively avoid conforming to the norms of groups with which they do not identify. We tested this by informing participants that a particular action was more popular amongst people they identified with and additionally informed some participants that this action was unpopular amongst people they did not identify with. Specifically, we pre

SUBMITTER: Pryor C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6619767 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature