The effects of influence conditions and discrepancy upon authoritarian conformity

Abstract

Having made a series of numerosity judgments, Ss were exposed to judgments presumably made by three other individuals. The discrepancy between Ss' judgments and those attributed to the others was either small or large and was revealed under conditions that emphasized either group or individual accuracy. When the discrepancy was large, nonauthoritarian Ss changed their judgments in both influence conditions, while the authoritarian Ss showed substantial change only in the group accuracy condition. When the discrepancy was small, no differences between authoritarian and nonauthoritarian conformity were observed.