Page 49 - The Social Animal

Conformity 31

In the experiments in the shower room and in the parking lot,
conformity was induced by information rather than by fear. But it is
not always easy to distinguish between the two types of conformity.
Often the behavior is identical; the key element that differentiates
the two processes is the presence or absence of a punitive agent.
Imagine that, in the mythical nation of Freedonia, it is considered
gracious for guests to belch after eating as a way of showing the host
that they enjoyed the meal. Suppose you didn’t know this, and you
were visiting the home of a Freedonian dignitary in the company of
some diplomats from the U.S. State Department. If, after the meal,
these diplomats began to belch, chances are you would belch also.
They were providing you with valuable information. On the other
hand, suppose you were in the same home in the company of some
rather rude and brawny young men who were introduced to you as
members of the Freedonian Olympic heavyweight wrestling team. If
these behemoths belched after their meal, my guess is that you might
not go along with this behavior.That is, you would probably consider
this an act of bad manners and would avoid belching. However, if
they glared at you for your failure to follow suit, you might indeed
belch too—not because of the information they supplied but because
you feared rejection or reprisal for refusing to be a good sport by
going along with their boorish behavior.
I would suggest that conformity resulting from the observation
of others for the purpose of gaining information about proper be-
havior tends to have more powerful ramifications than conformity
in the interest of being accepted or of avoiding punishment. I
would argue that, if we find ourselves in an ambiguous situation
wherein we must use the behavior of other people as a template for
our own behavior, it is likely that we will repeat our newly learned
behavior, without a cue, on subsequent similar occasions. This
would be the case unless, of course, we later received clear evidence
that our actions were inappropriate or incorrect. Thus, to go back
to our example, suppose you are reinvited to the home of the Free-
donian dignitary for dinner. But this time you are the only guest.
The question is: Do you or don’t you belch after the meal? A mo-
ment’s reflection should make the answer perfectly clear: If you had
belched after the first meal at his home because you realized it was
the proper thing to do (as would have been the case had you dined
in the company of the diplomats), you would be quite likely to