Page 33 - The Social Animal

Conformity 15

history of a juvenile delinquent named Johnny Rocco. After reading
the case, each group was asked to discuss it and to suggest a treat-
ment for Johnny on a scale that ranged from “very lenient treatment”
on one end to “very hard treatment” on the other. A typical group
consisted of approximately nine participants, six of whom were real
participants and three of whom were paid confederates of the exper-
imenter. The confederates took turns playing one of three roles that
they had carefully rehearsed in advance: the modal person, who took
a position that conformed to the average position of the real partic-
ipants; the deviate, who took a position diametrically opposed to the
general orientation of the group; and the slider, whose initial position
was similar to the deviate’s but who, in the course of the discussion,
gradually “slid” into a modal, conforming position.The results clearly
showed that the person who was liked most was the modal person
who conformed to the group norm; the deviate was liked least. In a
3
more recent experiment, Arie Kruglanski and Donna Webster found
that when nonconformists voiced a dissenting opinion close to the
deadline (when groups were feeling the pinch to come to closure),
they were rejected even more than when they voiced their dissenting
opinion earlier in the discussion.
Thus, the data indicate that the “establishment” or modal group
tends to like conformists better than nonconformists. Clearly, there
are situations in which conformity is highly desirable and noncon-
formity constitutes an unmitigated disaster. Suppose, for example,
that I suddenly decide that I am fed up with being a conformist. So
I hop into my car and start driving down the left-hand side of the
road—not a very adaptive way of displaying my rugged individual-
ism and not very fair to you if you happen to be driving toward me
(conformist-style) on the same street. Similarly, consider the rebel-
lious teenager who smokes cigarettes, stays out late, gets tattooed, or
dates a certain boy just because she knows that her parents disap-
prove. She is not manifesting independence so much as she is dis-
playing anticonformity, not thinking for herself but automatically
acting contrary to the desires or expectations of others.
On the other hand, I do not intend to suggest that conformity is
always adaptive and nonconformity is always maladaptive. There are
compelling situations in which conformity can be disastrous and
tragic. Moreover, even knowledgeable and sophisticated decision
makers can fall prey to special kinds of conformity pressures inherent