Paper 1

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Running head: COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING

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COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING

Comment by Ryan Winter: Do you know how to enter a header? Click on the “Insert” menu at the top of word, click on “Header”, and then type in the header whatever you want. There is even a box that you can check that allows you to have a different header on the first page than subsequent pages.

Counterfactual Thinking: Appointing Blame Comment by Ryan Winter: Note the title here as well. It is descriptive of the paper to come, and falls within the 12 words recommended by the APA. The first letter of all words over 4 letters is capitalized, as is the first word after the colon if it less than 4 letters. “Counterfactual Thinking: An Analysis of the Phenomenon” would thus be correct as well

Former Student Comment by Ryan Winter: Your name goes here

Florida International University Comment by Ryan Winter: Your university affiliation goes here

Counterfactual Thinking: Appointing Blame Comment by Ryan Winter: Note APA formatting for this page. Above, you have the header (the same header as on the title page in the same location, except now you omit the words Running head)
The page number is also present. Normally this literature review would start on page three with the abstract on page two, but for this assignment there is no abstract, so page 2 is fine!
Finally, your paper title goes at the top of the page, and it is identical to the title you used on the title page.

As free-willed beings, we can often become the victims of our own decisions. Imagine accidentally running over a stray cat because you decided to look away from the road at the exact moment the kitten decided to cross the street. Following the accident, most people would be plagued with thoughts of how alternative circumstances or decisions could have prevented such an unfortunate situation. Every time an individual forms a ‘what if’ scenario in which he or she mentally alters the course of events occurred, they are participating in a process that is known as counterfactual thinking (Ruiselová, Prokopčáková, & Kresánek, 2007; Williams, Lees-Haley, & Price 1996). This process allows individuals to consider the multiple factors at play in a situation (i.e mutability), and to decide what specific condition was responsible for the ultimate outcome of the event. The primary focus of our study is to analyze the extent of culpability people place on a particular factor depending on the preventability of the outcome. That is, if it is easy to “undue” an event that ends in a tragic outcome, will participants find an actor who fails to engage in that easy behavior more at fault? Comment by Ryan Winter: This is a good introduction that talks about the focus of this paper while starting off a good story. Watch how it flows from one paragraph to the next as it build the story, focusing on researchers and studies that came before and using those ideas as the author nears his own predictions Comment by Ryan Winter: I want you to notice something important here. The student author cited two different papers in the same sentence. This is fine! Both citations talk about “what if” scenarios, so both can support the statement written by the student author. Further, both citations are only mentioned once. The student author did not spend a paragraph or page on the citation. Feel free to do the same. Spend only as much time as you need. If it is a sentence, that’s fine. If more, that’s fine too!

The development of counterfactual thoughts relies on the variability of the situation, as well as the knowledge that different actions could have resulted in alternate outcomes (Alquist, Ainsworth, Baumeister, Daly, & Stillman, 2015). According to Alquist et al., situations that are believed to be highly changeable generate more counterfactual thoughts than events that seem unavoidable. However, ruminating on every conceivable alternative of a situation would take an unlimited amount of time and resources. Instead of allotting so much time and energy on a cognitive task, people tend to narrow down the different scenarios that come to mind according to the degree of controllability of the factors involved (McCloy & Byrne, 2000). For example, the deliberate decisions individuals make that ultimately lead to a certain outcome is considered to be a controllable event, whereas uncontrollable events are unavoidable circumstances, such as traffic jams or natural disasters (McCloy & Byrne, 2000). When mentally forming a scenario different than the one occurred, individuals tend to change controllable rather than uncontrollable events (2000). Therefore, events that are within an individual’s jurisdiction generally receive the brunt of the blame for the resulting situation. Comment by Ryan Winter: Using et al. is fine here, since the author provided all author names the first time. In general, provide all author names EVERY time if there are three or fewer authors. If four or more, give them all the first time and then use et al. thereafter after the first authors last name. If there are more than six authors, you can use et al the first time, but having more than six authors is pretty rare.

In a similar light, a study performed by McCloy and Byrne (2000), discovered that inappropriate events are more often changed through the process of counterfactual thinking than appropriate ones, especially when the outcome of these events was negative. Inappropriate events include the decisions individuals make that are considered to be ‘socially wrong’, whereas appropriate events are ‘socially acceptable’ actions. Due to these results, we can conclude that what McCloy and Byrne consider to be “inappropriate controllable” events, will likely be regarded as highly culpable factors in the outcome of a situation. Comment by Ryan Winter: This citation is a good example of APA formatting, When that word “and” falls outside of the parentheses, use the word “and” and not an ampersand (&) Comment by Ryan Winter: You will notice here that he doesn’t have the dates for these authors. This is okay, since he already gave the date in this paragraph, and the author names the second time around continue from that same analysis.

Another contributing factor to perceived culpability is the extent of knowledge of the actors involved in an event, as well as the intent of their actions (Gilbert, Tenney, Holland, & Spellman, 2015). For example, in the aforementioned scenario, had the driver known that looking away from the road would have caused her to run over the stray cat, the driver would have been more likely to be perceived guilty, even though the actions and the outcome of the situation remained the same. This rationalization is the product of a bottom-up method of thinking in which individuals are able to generate more counterfactual thoughts due to the actor’s knowledge of the outcome (Gilbert et al., 2015). As these authors have noted, the increased development of counterfactual thoughts will in turn attribute more responsibility to the actor, which will ultimately increase perceived blame. But this is not the full picture when it comes to focusing on the role of counterfactual thoughts in altering participant responses. Comment by Ryan Winter: Notice the flow from one paragraph to the next. This author isn’t just listing out studies he read; he is making connections between them and has connections from one paragraph to the next Comment by Ryan Winter: Here, the paper author did another nice job of using proper APA formatting. Since the cite is all within parentheses, he used the “&” properly.

In pursuance of counterfactual thinking and its relationship to perceived blame, we have devised a study that analyzed the extent of culpability people place on a particular factor depending on the preventability of the outcome. We provided participants with one of three scenarios, each of which depicted a variation of the same situation where alternate events lead to different conclusions. In the changeable condition, an actor engaged in a behavior that led to an undesirable outcome (death) that could have been avoided had he acted differently. In the unchangeable condition, the same actor engaged in a behavior that once again led to an undesirable outcome, but here the outcome could not have been avoided if he acted differently. In the neutral condition, the actor engaged in an alternative behavior, but the outcome was still undesirable. We predicted that participants would place more blame on the actor in the changeable condition where the actor could have avoided the undesirable outcome had he behaved differently than in both the unchangeable and neutral conditions, where the actor’s behavior could not be altered. This is because we expected changeable participants to generate more counterfactuals (more statements about how the actor could have behaved) in the changeable condition. Comment by Ryan Winter: Now we get into the heart of this student author’s paper. She had prior information on counterfactual thinking and noted the research that had been done in the area. She then uses that info to help set up her own study idea. That is, she gets more narrow as she reaches the end of the paper (ala the hourglass) Comment by Ryan Winter: She notes the design a bit without going into too much detail about the methods (which she will do in the next paper), but gives the reader a taste as she leads them to the cliffhanger! Comment by Ryan Winter: Now we get to the hypotheses. Aren’t you just dying to see what the study tells you now that you have some idea about his predictions!

References Comment by Ryan Winter: References start on its own page. My advice is to enter a page break in Word so that this will always start at the top of the page. Pay close attention to proper APA formatting here

Alquist, J. L., Ainsworth, S. E., Baumeister, R. F., Daly, M., & Stillman, T. F. (2015). The making of might-have-beens: Effects of free will belief on counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(2), 268-283. doi: Comment by Ryan Winter: Notice how this list is in alphabetical order, starting with Alquist and ending with Williams. This is good APA format

10.1177/0146167214563673

Gilbert, E. A., Tenney, E. R., Holland, C. R., & Spellman, B. A. (2015). Counterfactuals, control, and causation: Why knowledgeable people get blamed more. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(5), 643-658. doi: 10.1177/0146167215572137 Comment by Ryan Winter: You will notice that this word is capitalized. This is ok, since it follows a colon

McCloy, R., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2000). Counterfactual thinking about controllable events. Memory & Cognition, 28(6), 1071-1078. doi: 10.3758/BF03209355 Comment by Ryan Winter: Note the form for this peer-reviewed, primary resource. It is good. Author names and their first initial followed by the date. Then the title, with only the first word capitalized. The journal name is italicized, as is the volume number, and the page numbers are good. It also include the DOI

Ruiselová, Z., Prokopčáková, A., & Kresánek, J. (2007). Counterfactual thinking in relation to the personality of women–doctors and nurses. Studia Psychologica, 49(4), 333-339.

Williams, C. W., Lees-Haley, P., & Price, J. R. (1996). The role of counterfactual thinking and causal attribution in accident-related judgments. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(23), 2076-2099. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01789 Comment by Ryan Winter: My advice is to turn on the ruler when using a Word document. Using the ruler, you can make sure that you properly indent all but the first line of each reference (instead of using the space bar or tab) Comment by Ryan Winter: Use the & before listing the name of the last author

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW INSTRUCTIONS 1

PAPER II: METHODS AND RESULTS INSTRUCTIONS 3

Instructions for Paper I: Study One Literature Review Instructions (Worth 25 Points)

Ryan J. Winter

Florida International University

Purpose of Paper I: Study One Literature Review

1). Psychological Purpose

This paper serves several purposes, the first of which is helping you gain insight into research papers in psychology. As this may be your first time reading and writing papers in psychology, one goal of Paper I is to give you insight into what goes into such papers. This study one-lit review will help you a). better understand the psychology topic chosen for the course this semester (Facebook Consensus), b). learn about the various sections of an empirical research report by reading five peer-reviewed articles (that is, articles that have a Title Page, Abstract, Literature Review, Methods Section, Results Section, and References Page), and c). use information gathered from research articles in psychology to help support your hypotheses for your first study this semester (Facebook Consensus). Of course, you’ll be doing a study two literature review later in the semester, so think of this Paper I as the first part of your semester long paper. I recommend looking at the example Paper V, actually, to see what your final paper will look like. It might give you a better idea about how this current paper (as well as Papers II, III, and IV) all fit together into your final paper of the semester.

In this current paper (Paper I), you will read five research articles, summarize what the authors did and what they found, and use those summaries to support your Facebook Consensus study hypothesis. IMPORTANT: Yes you need five references, but keep in mind that you can spend a lot of time (a page or two!) summarizing one of them and a sentence or two summarizing others. Thus spend more time on the more relevant articles!

For this paper, start your paper broadly and then narrow your focus (think about the hourglass example provided in the lecture). My suggestion is to give a brief overview of your paper topic in your opening paragraph, hinting at the research variables you plan to look at for study one. Your next paragraphs will review prior research (those five references required for this paper). Make sure to draw connections between these papers, using smooth transitions between paragraphs. Your final paragraphs should use the research you just summarized to support your research hypothesis. And yes, that means you MUST include your study predictions (which we provided in the researcher instructions and the debriefing statement. Use them!). In other words, this first paper will look like the literature reviews for the five research articles you are summarizing for this assignment. Use the articles you are using as references as examples! See what they did and mimic their style! Here, though, you will end the paper after providing your hypothesis. In Paper II, you will pick the topic up again, but in that future paper you will talk about your own study methods and results.

2). APA Formatting Purpose

The second purpose of Paper I: Study One Literature Review is to teach you proper American Psychological Association (APA) formatting. In the instructions below, I tell you how to format your paper using APA style. There are a lot of very specific requirements in APA papers, so pay attention to the instructions below as well as Chapter 14 in your textbook!

3). Writing Purpose

Finally, this paper is intended to help you grow as a writer. Few psychology classes give you the chance to write papers and receive feedback on your work. This class will! We will give you extensive feedback on your first few paper in terms of content, spelling, and grammar. You will even be able to revise aspects of Paper I and include them in future papers (most notably Papers III and V). My hope is that you craft a paper that could be submitted to an empirical journal. Thus readers may be familiar with APA style but not your specific topic. Your job is to educate them on the topic and make sure they understand how your study design advances the field of psychology.

In fact, your final paper in this class (Paper V), might be read by another professor at FIU and not your instructor / lab assistant. Write your paper for that reader – the one who may know NOTHING about your topic and your specific study.

Note: The plagiarism limit for this paper is 30% (though this excludes any overlap your paper might have with regard to citations, references, and the hypotheses). Make sure your paper falls under 30% (or 35% if including predictions).

Note: I am looking for 2.5 pages minimum with predictions.

Instructions for Paper I: Study One Literature Review (Worth 25 Points)

Students: Below are lengthy instructions on how to write your study one literature review. There is also a checklist document in Canvas, which I recommend you print out and “check off” before submitting your paper (we are sticklers for APA format, so make sure it is correct! We mark off if you have a misplaced “&”, so carefully review all of your work and use the checklist! It will help). Also look at the example paper in Canvas. It will show you what we expect.

1. Title Page: I expect the following format. (5 Points)

a. You must have a header and page numbers on each page.

i. If you don’t know how to insert headers, ask your instructor or watch this very helpful video!

.

ii. The header goes at the top of the paper and it is left justified.

1. Use “Insert Headers” or click on the top of the page to open the header. Make sure to select the “Different first page” option so that your title page header will differ from subsequent pages

2. The R in Running head is capitalized but the “h” is lower case, followed by a colon and a short title (in ALL CAPS). This short running head title can be the same one as the rest of your paper or it can differ – the choice is yours, but it should be no more than 50 characters including spaces and punctuation

3. Insert a page number as well. The header is flush left, but the page number is flush right.

iii.

Want an example header? Look at the title page of these instructions! You can use other titles depending on your own preferences (e.g. SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONSENSUS; CONFORMITY; JUDGING OTHERS; etc.).

b. Your Title should be midway up the page. Again, see my “Title” page above as an example of the placement, but for your title try to come up with a title that helps describe your study one. Avoid putting “Paper One”. Rather, consider the titles you saw in PsycInfo. Create a similar title that lets the reader know what your paper is about

c. Your name (First Last) and the name of your institution (FIU) beneath the title. For this class, only your own name will go on this paper. Double space everything!

i. You can also refer to Chapter 14 in your powerpoints and/or Smith and Davis textbook

d. This Title Page section will be on page 1

2. Abstract?

a. You DO NOT need an abstract for Paper I. In fact, you cannot write it until you run both study one and two (as the abstract highlights the results), so omit the abstract for now

3. Literature Review Section (12 points)

a. First page of your literature review (Page 2)

i. Proper header with page numbers. Your running head title will appear in the header of your page WITHOUT the phrase “Running head”. To insert this header, use the headers program.

ii. The title of your paper should be on the first line of page two, centered. It is IDENTICAL to the title on your title page. Just copy and paste it!

iii. The beginning text for your paper follows on the next line

b. Citations for the literature review

i. Your paper must cite a minimum of five (5) empirical research articles that are based on studies conducted in psychology. That is, each of the five citations you use should have a literature review, a methods section, a results section, a conclusion/discussion, and references.

1. For Paper I, you MUST use at least three of the five articles provided in the Canvas folder. You can use four if you like, but you must use three at minimum – however, you cannot use all five. For that fifth article, you must find it using PsycInfo. There are some other conditions for this fifth article that you must follow:

a. First, remember that the fifth article cannot be any of the five found in the Canvas folder.

b. Second, for your fifth article, it can be based on a wide variety of topics, including general priming studies, studies on consensus or conformity (without a social media angle), studies on social media (without a consensus or conformity angle), studies on impression formation, studies on friends, studies on informational social influence or morality etc. Trust me, there are TONS of topics that can help you in your paper. Just choose one that will help you support your experimental hypothesis for your Facebook Consensus study. That is, it has to help you justify your study one hypothesis (all students are using this same hypothesis, so make sure to read it. You can find it in the researcher instructions along with the questionnaires you are giving to participants. I actually suggest copying and pasting that hypothesis into this first paper at the end).

c. Finally, you can have more than five references if you want, but you must have a minimum of five references.

ii. Proper citations must be made in the paper – give credit where credit is due, and don’t make claims that cannot be validated.

iii. If you use a direct quote, make sure to provide a page number for where you found that quote in the citations. Do not directly quote too often, though.
You can have no more than three direct quotes in the whole paper
(though zero quotes would be even better). Instead, I would like you to paraphrase when possible.

c. Requirements for the information in your literature review

i. Your study one literature review should use prior research as a starting point, narrowing down the main theme of your specific project – think about the hourglass example from Chapter 14 in Smith and Davis.

ii. The last part of your literature review should narrow down your focus onto your own study, eventually ending in your study hypothesis. However, DO NOT go into specific details about your methods. You will talk about your specific methods in Paper II in a few weeks.

iii. Again, to make it clear, at the end of your paper you will give an overview of your research question, providing your specific predictions/hypotheses.

d.
The literature review must have minimum of two (2) full pages NOT INCLUDING THE HYPOTHESES (2.5 pages with the hypotheses). It has a maximum of five (5) pages
(thus, with the title page and references page, the paper should be between 4.5 and 7 pages). If it is only four and a half pages (again, including the hypotheses), it better be really, really good. I don’t think I could do this paper justice in fewer than five pages, so if yours isn’t at least five pages, I doubt it will get a good grade.

4. References (6 points)

a. The References section starts on its own page, with the word References centered. Use proper APA format in this section or you will lose points.

b. All five references that you cited in the literature review must be in this section (there should be more than five references here if you cited more than five articles, which is fine in this paper). However, at least three must come from the article folder on Canvas while the remaining two can come from either the last Canvas paper or two new ones from psychinfo. Only peer-reviewed articles are allowed here (no books, journals, websites, or other secondary resources are allowed for paper one).

c. For references, make sure you:

i. use alphabetical ordering (start with the last name of the first author)

ii. use the authors’ last names but only the initials of their first/middle name

iii. give the date in parentheses – e.g. (2007).

iv. italicize the name of the journal article

v. give the volume number, also in italics

vi. give the page numbers (not italicized) for articles

vii. provide the doi (digital object identifier) if present (not italicized)

5. Writing Quality (2 Points)

a. This includes proper grammar and spelling. I recommend getting feedback on your paper from the Pearson Writer program prior uploading it on Canvas.

6. Between the title page, literature review, and reference page, I expect a minimum of 4 pages and a maximum of 7 pages for this assignment. But like I said, the shorter the paper, the less likely it is to get a good grade, so aim for 5 pages minimum.

The above information is required for your paper, but I wanted to provide a few tips about writing your literature review as well. Students often struggle with the first paper, but hopefully this will give you some good directions:

· First, remember that you need 5 references, all of which MUST be peer-reviewed (three coming from the Canvas folder and one or two that you find on your own using PsycInfo).

· Second, I don’t expect a lengthy discussion for each and every article that you cite. You might spend a page talking about Article A and a sentence or two on Article B. The amount of time you spend describing an article you read should be proportional to how important it is in helping you defend your hypotheses. See if there is a prior study that looks a lot like yours (hint – there is at least one, which I based this study on, but you’ll have to find it on your own!). I would expect you to spend more time discussing that prior research since it is hugely relevant to your own study. If an article you read simply supports a global idea that ties into your study but has very different methods (like “frustrated people get mad!”), you can easily mention it in a sentence or two without delving into a lot of detail. Tell a good story in your literature review, but only go into detail about plot elements that have a direct bearing on your study!

· Third, this paper is all about supporting your hypotheses. Know what your hypotheses are before you write the paper, as it will help you determine how much time to spend on each article you are citing. My suggestion is to spend some time describing the nature of consensus and conformity, and then talking about studies that looked at this area. Use those studies to help defend your own study hypothesis. That is, “Since they found X in this prior study, that helps support the hypothesis in the present study”. Do you remember your hypotheses? Okay, I’ll be really helpful here. BELOW are your hypotheses. In your paper, support it! Just remember that the rest of your paper needs to be at least two full pages NOT INCLUDING the hypothesis below. In other words, including the hypotheses below, your actual text for your paper should be at least two and a half pages!

In general, we predict that participants who read unanimously supportive feedback will rate the Facebook user’s conduct as more acceptable than participants who read unanimously oppositional feedback, with those who read mixed feedback falling between these extremes.

More specifically, participants in the unanimously supportive condition will more strongly agree with supportive survey statements (“Abigail’s behavior was understandable, “Abigail’s behavior was reasonable”, “Abigail’s behavior was appropriate”, “I would advise Abigail to keep silent”, and “I would try to comfort Abigail”) and more strongly disagree with oppositional survey statements (“Abigail’s behavior was wrong”, “Abigail’s behavior was unethical”, “Abigail’s behavior was immoral”, and “Abigail’s behavior was unacceptable”) compared to participants in the unanimously oppositional condition, with participants in the mixed condition falling between these extremes. However, participants in both the unanimously supportive and unanimously oppositional conditions will strongly agree that they would give Abigail the same advice that her friends gave her.

· Fourth, make sure to proofread, proofread, proofread! Use the Pearson Writer for help, but note that their suggestions are just that – suggestions. It is up to you to make sure the flow of the paper is easy to understand. Good luck!

· Fifth, go look at the supporting documents for this paper. There is a checklist, a grade rubric, and an example paper. All will give you more information about what we are specifically looking for as well as a visual example of how to put it all together. Good luck!

· Finally, note that you have a lot of help available to you. You can go to the Research Methods Help Center (which is staffed by research methods instructors and teaching assistants). You can go to the Writing Center in the Green Library (at MMC) and get help with writing quality. You can attend workshops from the Center for Academic success (CfAS) focusing on APA formatting, paraphrasing, and statistics. Your instructor might even be willing to give you extra credit for using these resources, so make sure to ask your instructor about it.

Combating Weight-Based

Cyberbullying

on Facebook with the Dissenter Effect

Jenn Anderson, PhD,
1

Mary Bresnahan, PhD,

2

and Catherine Musatics, MA
2

Abstract

Weight-based cyberbullying is prevalent among youth and adolescents and can have lasting negative psychological
effects on the victims

.

One way to combat these negative effects is through modeling dissenting behavior. When

a

bystander challenges the bully or supports the victim, this models dissenting behavior. In this study, 181 participants
were exposed to message manipulations posted on a Facebook page aimed at testing the conformity effect, the
dissenter effect, and the bystander effect in response to enactment of weight-based bullying. Facebook is a common
social media site where cyberbullying is reported. Results indicate that in the dissenting condition, participants’
comments were significantly more positive or supporting for the victim, as compared to other conditions. This effect
was more pronounced for men than for women. In addition, in the dissenting condition, men were less likely to consider
the victim unhealthy than women and men in other conditions. These results support the effectiveness of efforts to
model dissenting behavior in the face of bullies and extend them to online contexts. Implications are discussed.

Introduction

Cyberbullying is intense personal harassment de-riving from ‘‘comments, information or pictures posted
online for others to see with the intent to embarrass.’’1 Face-
to-face and online weight bullying are common forms of
bullying that are directed at the victim’s weight.

2–4
Weight-

based bullying is associated with negative outcomes, in-
cluding increased risk of depression, anxiety, poor body
image, social isolation, and maladaptive eating behaviors.

2

Weight-based bullying now commonly occurs online,
4,5

that
is, weight-based cyberbullying. This study creates a hypo-
thetical weight-based cyberbullying situation on Facebook to
test how social support for the victim, via dissenting com-
ments, may affect bystanders’ behaviors.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying affects children, adolescents, and adults.
6–9

Cyberbullying has negative effects on victims, such as lower-
ing self-esteem, increasing depression, and producing feelings
of powerlessness.6,10–13 Cyberbullying can be more devastat-
ing than traditional bullying for three reasons. First, cyber-
bullying is easier to engage in because of increased anonymity
and decreased internal censorship.

13–14
Second, cyberbullying

is more pervasive than traditional bullying,
13

partly because
perpetrators can use a broad range of platforms, including Web
sites, cell phones, e-mail, and instant messaging.

15
Third, on-

line comments are often permanently, and repeatedly, visible
by peers.

15,16
A particularly troubling form of cyberbullying is

weight-based cyberbullying.

Weight-based cyberbullying. Weight-based (cyber)bul-
lying is pervasive. Adolescents report that weight-based bul-
lying is the most common form of bullying experienced at
school,

3–4
and 53% of parents report that ‘‘being overweight’’

is the most common reason for youth bullying.
4

Across all
demographic categories, weight-based bullying increases in
intensity as the victim’s body mass index (BMI) increases.

2,3

Cyberbullying is the most common form of weight-based bul-
lying among overweight adolescents; 61% have received mean
or embarrassing posts online, and 59% have received mean
texts, e-mails, or instant messages.

4
Weight-based cyber-

bullying can be more serious than in-person weight-based
bullying because comments have high social visibility and
permanence in cyberspace.

10,13
Given the prevalence and

severity of weight-based cyberbullying, it is crucial to con-
sider methods to reduce or prevent this behavior, such as
encouraging bystanders of bullying to defend the victim.

17–20

Conformity and dissenter effects

Public situations with easily observed behavior encourage
social conformity.

21
Conformity occurs when an individual

experiences pressure to act normatively.
22,23

With cyber-
bullying, bystanders (observers of the bullying interaction)

1
Department of Communication Studies and Theatre, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota.

2
Communication Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING
Volume 17, Number 5, 2014
ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2013.0370

281

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may conform through joining the bully or providing tacit
support through silence.

14,24
Challenging a bully is a difficult

social behavior because it dissents from the social norm. The
bystander is faced with the dilemma of choosing between
normative behavior (which offers social approval) or dis-
senting behavior (which risks social disapproval).

22
Previous

research demonstrates that when dissenting behavior was
modeled, participants were less likely to conform to norma-
tive behavior and more likely to engage in dissenting behav-
ior.

21,25,26
For weight-based cyberbullying on Facebook, one

or more dissenting comments may produce a dissenter effect
whereby a bystander would challenge the bully or defend the
victim.

The creation of a ‘‘dissenting’’ condition mimics recent
bullying interventions efforts that equip bystanders to enact
social support to confront bullies.27,28 A recent meta-analysis28

showed that this method effectively increased bystander in-
terventions in face-to-face bulling situations. The current study
extends those efforts by examining the effects of a bystander
intervention online. Specifically, bystander intervention occurs
through dissenting comments responding to weight-based
bullying on a Facebook page. In this study, participants are
exposed to Facebook pages that model conformity (all nega-
tive comments), model dissent (some dissenting comments
among bullying comments), or provide no behavioral model
(i.e., no comments). Then, participants may provide their own
comments. The conformity manipulation in this study should
produce behavior similar to the control condition because
negative weight-based communication is normative in Amer-
ican society.29–33 However, comments in the dissent condition
should be more positive than in other conditions.

H1: Comments posted by participants in the dissenter
condition will be more positive than comments posted by
participants in the conformity or control conditions.

In addition to affecting participants’ comments toward the
victim, exposure to dissenting comments may also affect
participants’ empathy toward the victim, and their percep-
tions of the victims’ health and attractiveness. Thus, the
following research question is investigated:

RQ1: How will participant empathy, perception of victim
health, and perception of victim attractiveness differ by
condition?

The effects of gender on cyberbullying have been mixed.
While some research has observed that women held more
negative attitudes toward bullying than men,

28
other research

has shown that women are more prone to criticize over-
weight women for their size.

30–32
This prompts the second

research question.

RQ2: Will there be an interaction between gender and
condition that affects the dependent variables (com-
ment valence, participant empathy for the victim,
perception of victim health, and perception of victim
attractiveness)?

Materials and Method

Participants and procedures

All procedures and materials were approved by the insti-
tutional review board at a large Midwestern university, and

consent was obtained from each participant. A total of 190
students enrolled in three service classes were invited to
participate in this study; 181 students (97 men, 84 women)
entered the portal link (95% compliance), and all participated
in this study. Participants were 18–24 years old (M = 19.38
years, SD = 1.28). The majority of participants (66.3%)
identified as Caucasian, 13.5% as Asian, 12.4% as African
American, 3.4% as Hispanic, and 4.5% as other.

A series of Facebook accounts were created to simulate
online interactions. We created a main account and six ad-
ditional friend accounts. The main account belonged to a
person we named ‘‘Jessica.’’ Jessica is a pseudonym for
a mildly overweight, moderately attractive, Caucasian,
college-aged female. The stimuli for the study were created
by capturing a screenshot of a picture posted to Jessica’s
page, along with corresponding comments. Posing as Jessica,
we posted a picture of Jessica on her page, with the caption
‘‘dear roomies, thanks for the junk food celebration for
passing my exams, but next time let me know when you’re
taking a picture. kthx. &&&.’’ In the picture, Jessica is
sitting comfortably in an armchair, looking down and to her
left, and eating potato chips, cookies, and candy.

a

Participants were randomly assigned to conditions via an
online survey built through Survey Gizmo (conformity,
n = 71; dissenter, n = 65; control, n = 45). Each condition in-
cluded enough participants to allow for adequate statistical
power in analysis. The dropout rate for the survey was less
than 3%. There were no significant differences by condition
for age F(2, 162) = 0.61, p = 0.54; gender F(2, 178) = 0.26,
p = 0.77; or race F(2, 175) = 0.50, p = 0.61.

In the control condition, participants viewed a screenshot
that only showed Jessica’s picture and her own caption. In
the conformity condition, participants viewed a screenshot
that captured Jessica’s picture, her own caption, and com-
ments from six of her friends (three men, three women).

b
In

the dissenter condition, participants viewed a screenshot that
captured Jessica’s picture, her own caption, and comments
from six of her friends (three men, three women). In this
condition, two conformity comments were replaced with these
dissenting comments: (a) ‘‘Don’t listen to HATERS! You
look good!’’; (b) ‘‘You guys are SO MEAN! Leave her alone
about her weight!’’ After viewing the screenshot, participants
were prompted to post their own comment as though they
were posting on this Facebook page; 155 participants provided
comments. Participants then completed measures of study
variables. Unless otherwise indicated, all variables were
measured using 7-point Likert-type scales where higher
numbers indicate a greater presence of the variable. Psycho-
metric properties of scales are presented in Table 1.

Possible covariates

Participant body size. A single item measure asked
participants to describe their bodies (1 = ‘‘very thin,’’
7 = ‘‘obese’’; M = 3.71, SD = 1.13). In addition, participants
also reported their weight and height; we calculated their
BMI with the following formula: weight/height

2 · 703.34
The average BMI score was in the normal range (M = 23.29,
SD = 4.29), and the majority of participants (58.2%) were in
the normal weight category. In addition, 22% of participants
were in the overweight category, 9% were in the obese cat-
egory, and 7% were in the underweight category.

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Body appreciation. Participants completed a shortened
version of the Body Appreciation Scale.35 This 7-item scale
was unidimensional and reliable (a = 0.93). Sample items
included ‘‘On the whole, I am satisfied with my body’’ and
‘‘Despite its flaws, I accept my body for what it is.’’

Self-esteem. Participants completed the Short State Self-
esteem Scale.

36
This 5-item scale was unidimensional and

reliable (a = 0.82). Sample items included ‘‘I feel good about
myself’’ and ‘‘I feel that others respect and admire me.’’

Experience of weight-based teasing. Participants com-
pleted the weight-related teasing subscale of the Perception
of Teasing Scale (POTS).

37
The 6-item scale was unidimen-

sional and reliable (a = 0.87). Sample items included ‘‘People
sometimes make jokes about me being too heavy’’ and
‘‘People point at me and laugh because I am overweight.’’

Dependent variables

Comment valence. The valence (i.e., degree of negativity
or positivity) of each participant’s comment was evaluated by
two trained coders independent from the project, who were
blind to the conditions. Coders used a 5-point scale to evaluate
comment valence (1 = ‘‘negative,’’ 2 = ‘‘somewhat negative,’’
3 = ‘‘neutral,’’ 4 = ‘‘somewhat positive,’’ 5 = ‘‘positive’’). Ne-
gative comments made explicit negative remarks about Jessica
or her body, for example ‘‘are you happy with yourself?’’
Somewhat negative comments referred to the situation in a
negative way but did not personalize it to ‘‘Jessica,’’ for ex-
ample ‘‘Haha hate when I have pictures taken when I’m pig-
ging out!’’ Neutral comments were directed at other aspects of
the situation that did not have to do with Jessica, for example
‘‘Those chips look good!’’ The somewhat positive comments
made positive remarks about Jessica that were unrelated to her
body or that did not defend Jessica against bullying, for ex-
ample ‘‘Eat up! You deserve it!’’ Finally, positive comments
made explicit positive remarks about Jessica and/or encour-
aged Jessica in response to bullying, for example ‘‘I don’t
know what everyone is talking about. You’re wonderful, don’t
let them influence you.’’ Coders reached acceptable intercoder
reliability (Cohen’s j = 0.89).

Empathy for the victim. The authors developed a 6-item
scale that measured the extent to which participants in the
conformity and dissenter conditions felt empathy toward the
victim. Sample items included ‘‘I was touched by Jessica’s

situation of getting negative comments about her size’’ and
‘‘I felt bad for Jessica when I read these comments.’’ The
scale was unidimensional and reliable (a = 0.87).

Perception of victim’s health. The authors developed a 6-
item scale that measured the extent to which participants
considered the victim unhealthy as a result of her eating
behaviors (as suggested by the photo). Higher scores indi-
cated that participants perceived Jessica as unhealthy due to
her eating behaviors. Sample items included ‘‘If Jessica
keeps on eating like that, she is going to have a heart at-
tack’’ and ‘‘Jessica is killing herself by stuffing food into
her mouth.’’ The scale was unidimensional and reliable
(a = 0.84).

Perception of victim’s attractiveness. The authors de-
veloped a 6-item scale that measured the extent to which
participants considered the victim physically unattractive
due to her weight. Higher scores indicated that participants
perceived Jessica as unattractive because of her weight.
Sample items included ‘‘Jessica’s large size makes her to-
tally unattractive’’ and ‘‘Jessica is really hefty; people
probably don’t think she is attractive.’’ The scale was uni-
dimensional and reliable (a = 0.88).

Results

The overall distribution of comments (N = 155) included
26 (16.8%) negative comments, 22 (14.2%) somewhat neg-
ative comments, 41 (26.5%) neutral comments, 46 (29.7%)
somewhat positive comments, and 20 (12.9%) positive
comments. Twenty-six participants did not provide a com-
ment (3 control, 8 dissent, 15 bullying). See Table 2 for the
distribution of response type by condition. Respondents who
did not post any comments thought that Jessica was healthier,

Table 1. Psychometric Properties of Study Variables

Mean (SD)

Scale Men Women Overall Alpha

Body appreciation 5.42 (1.18) 4.84 (1.32) 5.15 (1.18) 0.93
Self-esteem 5.19 (1.09) 4.66 (1.12) 4.94 (1.13) 0.82
Teasing experience 1.57 (.60) 1.48 (.57) 1.53 (.49) 0.87
Empathy 4.68 (1.03) 5.42 (.92) 5.03 (1.04) 0.87
Perceived lack of health 4.98 (1.00) 4.99 (1.00) 4.99 (.99) 0.84
Perceived unattractiveness 4.22 (1.17) 3.59 (1.33) 3.93 (1.28) 0.88
Comment valence 3.15 (1.25) 2.99 (1.31) 3.08 (1.28) —

Note. Teasing experience and comment valence were measured with 5-point scales. All other mean scores are based on 7-point scales.

Table 2. Distribution of

Comment Valence

by Condition

Comment Valence

Condition Negative Neutral Positive No Comment

Control 15 15 12 8
Dissent 12 16 29 8
Conformity 22 17 17 15
Overall 49 48 58 26

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t(95) = 2.41, p < 0.05, and more attractive, t(95) = 3.31, p < 0.001, and they showed greater empathy for Jessica t(95) = -2.70, p < 0.01, compared to respondents who posted negative comments.

Hypothesis 1 predicted that comments would be most
positive in the dissenting condition. A one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA) was used to test this hypothesis.

c
This

hypothesis was supported. Comments in the dissenting
condition (M = 3.42, SD = 0.1.21) were more positive than
those in the conformity (M = 2.80, SD = 1.33) or control
(M = 2.98, SD = 1.22) conditions, F(2, 152) = 3.61, p = 0.03,
partial g2 = 0.05.

RQ1 asked whether participants’ empathy toward the
victim and perceptions of victim health and attractiveness
would differ based on condition. One-way ANOVAs were
used to answer this research question. There were no sig-
nificant differences by condition for empathy toward the
victim, F(1, 136) = 0.43, p = 0.51, partial g2 = 0.003; per-
ceptions of victim health, F(2, 178) = 2.77, p = .07, partial
g2 = 0.03; or perceptions of victim appearance, F(2,
178) = 1.62, p = 0.20, partial g2 = 0.02.

RQ2 asked whether there would be a condition · gender
interaction that affected the dependent variables. A series of
3 · 2 (condition: control, conformity, dissent · gender: male,
female) ANOVAs were used to answer RQ2. For comment
valence, comments were most positive among men in the
dissent condition, F(2, 132) = 3.98, p = 0.02, partial g2 = 0.05.
Figure 1 displays this finding. For perceived victim health,
compared to all other conditions, men in the control condi-
tion found the victim the most unhealthy, whereas men in the
dissent condition found the victim the least unhealthy, F(2,
132) = 3.48, p = 0.03, partial g2 = 0.04. And compared to
women in the other conditions, women in the conformity
condition found the victim to be significantly unhealthier.
Figure 2 displays this finding.

Discussion and Implications

The results of this study indicate that modeling dissenting
behavior in weight-based cyberbullying situations can en-
courage bystanders to provide verbal support to the victim.
This finding confirms previous research on the effectiveness

of modeling dissenting behavior, which is a form of social
support, when faced with a bully

4,

21,27,28,30

and extends it to

an online context. In addition, it confirms that without a
model for positive communication about bodies, people are
far less likely to formulate such messages.

33
The support for

the dissenter effect found in this study can serve as a model
for cyberbullying prevention efforts.39 Future interventions
should develop dissenting communication models for by-
standers to emulate when faced with bullying situations.

The effectiveness of modeling dissenting behavior was
particularly pronounced for men. Specifically, men in the
dissent condition provided the most positive comments and
found the victim the least unhealthy, compared to all other
conditions. This finding is significant because, without any
behavioral modeling (in the control condition), men provided
the most negative comments and found the victim the most
unhealthy. Gender differences in weight-based bullying may
account for this effect. Male perpetrators of weight-based
bullying typically use teasing or direct verbal bullying,
whereas women typically use relational forms of victimiza-
tion like social isolation.2 In this study, direct verbal bullying
was targeted. Future interventions that include models of
dissent for verbal and relational forms of bullying may be
more effective for both genders.

Women in the control condition rated the victim as less
unhealthy than did men; this appears inconsistent with pre-
vious research that suggests women are highly critical of other
women’s bodies.

30–32
However, women’s ratings of the vic-

tim’s unhealthiness (M = 4.99) in that condition were signifi-
cantly above the midpoint of that scale (3.5), t(83) = 13.71,
p < 0.001, and women’s evaluations of the victim’s health remained negative across conditions—even though men’s perceptions changed when exposed to peer comments. This stability of women’s negative evaluations of overweight wom- en’s health is consistent with previous research.30–32 Future research should continue to examine such gender differences and explore the patterns when the victim is male.

Importantly, 14% of participants (n = 26) provided no
comments on the Facebook page; they acted as passive by-
standers to online weight bullying. Across conditions, silent
bystanders had greater empathy for the victim and perceived
the victim to be less unhealthy and more attractive than those
who posted negative comments. In addition, the bystander

FIG. 1. Effect of gender · condition interaction on com-
ment valence.

FIG. 2. Effect of gender · condition interaction on per-
ception of unhealthiness.

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effect was more common in the bullying condition than in
other conditions. This suggests that some passive bystanders
appeared not to agree with the bullying. However, they did
nothing to intervene or give support to the victim. This kind
of response is consistent with claims about diffusion of re-
sponsibility related to the bystander effect.

24
Future studies

should more fully probe what is experienced by passive
bystanders to weight-based cyberbullying.

Limitations of this study must also be considered. First,
this study’s dissenting behavior only targets one type of
bullying: negative verbal comments directed at the victim’s
weight. This limits the generalizability of these findings to
interventions that target direct verbal teasing. Second, the
victim in this study is a Caucasian female. A male victim
may have elicited different comments from participants, and
future studies should examine this potential gender effect.
Finally, this study was limited by the unrealistic nature of the
Facebook page (i.e., a static screenshot, rather than interac-
tive page). Participants were aware that their comments
would not be seen by anyone and that they would not be
associated with the victim. This may have altered their be-
havior in unknown ways, reducing the external validity of
these results.

In conclusion, this study found support for the dissenter
effect in combatting weight-based cyberbullying. This effect
was particularly pronounced for male participants who pro-
vided the most positive comments after exposure to a dis-
senting model. This study provides additional support for
bullying interventions that model dissenting behavior

21,27,28,30

and establishes the usefulness of this method in the case of
weight-based cyberbullying.

Notes

a. To select this image, the researchers gathered a range of
photos from Google images, all depicting large women eat-
ing cake and junk food. Previous research eliciting partici-
pant reactions to images of overweight individuals suggested
that extreme examples of large body size could potentially be
biasing.

33
From several images of large women, two repre-

sentative images of a moderately obese attractive woman
controlling for race were selected. These two images were
pretested with 60 participants (males and females) to ascer-
tain that both images were seen as somewhat overweight and
more or less attractive to some participants. Both yielded
acceptable results, and the better of the two images was se-
lected to represent Jessica.

b. (a) Get off ur ass and onto the Biggest Loser; (b) OMG,
ur so unhealthy; (c) This pic makes me sad; (d) Srsly girl, ur
such a fat ass tub of lard; (e) Constant eating = obesity;
evidence—this picture; (f ) Go ahead & stuff your face with
junk!

c. Prior to conducting hypothesis tests, we examined the
data according to previously established guidelines to de-
termine whether any of the potential covariates should be
included in the analyses.

38
No covariates were significantly

related to any of the outcome variables, thus none were in-
cluded in hypothesis tests.

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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Address correspondence to:
Dr. Jenn Anderson

115K Pugsley Center
Box 2218

Brookings, SD 57007

E-mail: Jennifer.Anderson@sdstate.edu

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Journal of Applied Psychology
1972. Vol. 56, No. 1,

54

-59

INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND
PRODUCT EVALUATION 1

JOEL B. COHEN2 AND ELLEN GOLDEN

University of Illinois

Two groups of 5s were exposed to 16 scaled product evaluations (supposedly from
peers). High uniformity and low uniformity conditions, respectively, were deter-
mined by degree of dispersion. Both expected their evaluations to be visible to
others. Two remaining groups were given no information regarding others’ evalua-
tions. One group, however, expected their evaluations to be visible to others. The
5s’ subsequent evaluations were significantly influenced by others’ ratings, the
greatest influence occurring under the high uniformity-visibility condition. There
was, however, no significant difference due to 5s’ expectations that their ratings
would be visible to others. Individual differences in interpersonal response orienta-
tions were not significantly related to the acceptance of information from others,
although the direction of results was in accord with predictions.

For many, the application of social influence
research is limited to rather specialized settings
(e.g., formal group interaction or structured
authority relationships) or tied to the notion
of conformity or conformity proneness. This
view tends to understate the pervasiveness of
social influence and its importance to human
behavior. Informational social influence, espe-
cially, has not received its due consideration
in many settings and under many circum-
stances in which it is likely to be a significant
factor in decision making and overt behavior.

Product evaluation may prove to be an
especially fertile setting within which informa-
tional social influence is likely to operate.
Products are typically evaluated relative to a
number of competing needs and demands on
individual and family resources. Resulting
questions of value judgments, which are them-
selves not completely reducible to objective
evidence and matters of fact, are without doubt
subject to social frames of reference. Appro-
priate or correct behavior is such, in large
part, because of the evidence we have that
others agree with or accept the behavior.
Aside from questions of value, the very com-
plexity of product evaluation itself (e.g., the
number of brands and models, the claims and
counterclaims, and the difficulty of obtaining

1 Appreciation is expressed to Raymond Suh for his
help on the study.

2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Joel B.
Cohen, Department of Business Administration, Uni-
versity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana,
Illinois 61801.

objective evidence) and the time it would take
to resolve the many uncertainties combine to
favor the utilization of information from others.

The study to be reported focuses specifically
on three potential sources of influence on a
consumer’s judgment in social situations: (a)
the uniformity of relevant information pro-
vided by others, (6) the extent to which one’s
judgment (evaluation) is known to others, and
(c) one’s interpersonal response orientations.

Many of the early conformity studies failed
to distinguish clearly between two processes
of social influence whose differences are of
considerable importance (Asch, 1958; Crutch-
field, 1955; Sherif, 1958). The first, normative
social influence, refers to influence to conform
with certain expectations held by others. The
second, informational social influence, refers
to influence to accept information provided by
others which is taken as evidence about
reality.3 The former might be termed conform-
ity in the sense that one accepts influence
either to establish or enhance a favora

ble

reward-punishment relationship with certain
individuals or because of a desire to identify
with such individuals or their points of view
(Kelman, 1961). The second, however, is not
true conformity in the sense that a lack of

3 We are relying most strongly here on the distinction
made by Deutsch and Gerard (19SS), although a
number of researchers have proposed fairly similar ap-
proaches. See Jones and Gerard (1967) for a partic-
ularly insightful discussion of these as social compari-
son processes, especially in the context of “information
dependence” and “effect dependence.”

54

SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND PRODUCT EVALUATION

55

information, an ambiguous situation, or prema-
ture demands for action or decision lead the
person to substitute seemingly competent in-
formation from others for his own search for
direct evidence. Indeed direct, physical, and
objective evidence regarding the truth of many
of our beliefs (and especially values) is simply
not easily obtainable. For many of these our
primary point of reference may be other indi-
viduals or groups, and our reality, therefore,
is socially as well as physically determined.

Under either informational or normative
conditions, the uniformity of information pro-
vided by others regarding the relative quality
of a product should have a direct bearing on
consumers’ evaluations. This should be espe-
cially true when (a) quality is somewhat am-
biguous because of a lack of clear standards,
and (b) one’s own ability to discriminate is
not thought satisfactory. Venkatesan (1966)
demonstrates that social influence is operative
in this type of product evaluation situation.
We prefer to characterize the process he studied
not as “conformity to group pressure” (as he
has done) but, rather, as “informational social
influence.”

Stafford (1966) provides an interesting pic-
ture of informal group influence on brand
preferences within sociometrically determined
“natural” groups. Here the setting is conducive
to both influence processes, although the rela-
tive strength of normative influence would
almost certainly be greater for an object or
issue of greater relevance to the group (around
which norms could develop) than bread.

In order to more adequately study conditions
underlying the acceptance of social influence,
it is necessary to go beyond a one-way flow of
information and influence (from the group to
the individual). Such a conceptualization is too
narrow and does not consider others’ subse-
quent reactions to the behavior of the individ-
ual, especially the extent of his acceptance or
rejection of group influence. It seems espe-
cially important to separate out the effects of
factors which influence public acceptance of
information from those which influence adher-
ence to such information. Adherence should
follow directly from uniformity, for example,
under conditipns supportive of informational
social influence. If an individual has merely
expressed public acceptance (under conditions

favoring normative influence), his perception
that others are able to maintain surveilance
and impose sanctions may be necessary condi-
tions for adherence. In the classic conformity
studies, either 5s’ evaluations or behaviors
were perceived to be visible to others. In this
study we will specifically examine the impor-
tance of this factor under informational social
influence conditions.

Interpersonal response orientations refer to
people’s predominant modes of response to
others. They can be thought of as interpersonal
aspects of personality. Using Horney’s (1945)
tripartite classification of moving toward,
against, or away from others, Cohen (1967)
developed the Compliant, Aggressive, De-
tached (CAD) scale to measure the extent of a
person’s corresponding compliant, aggressive,
and detached interpersonal orientations. As
predicted, compliant people were more sus-
ceptible to information regarding group judg-
ments than were aggressive people, although
(at least in the absence of group pressure and
overt influence attempts) no significant differ-
ences in detached orientations among high- and
low-opinion changers were observed (Campbell,
1966).

Most people seem to have a reasonable
balance among the orientations so that al-
though one is usually preferred (more con-
sistent with other values or more often rein-
forced in social interaction) the person remains
flexible to the demands of the situation. Even
a highly aggressive person may refrain from
aggressive behavior under certain physical or
moral constraints. To the extent that more
specific situational influences (e.g., substantive
issues, objects, other people’s identity, task
requirements, etc.) encourage the expression
of individual differences, we should find some
correspondence between behavior and pre-
ferred modes of relating to others. Accordingly,
interpersonal response orientations were an
additional factor incorporated into the design
of the study.

METHOD

Each of three groups of 48 introductory marketing
students at the University of Illinois was randomly
assigned to four treatment conditions to form three
blocks of 12 Ss within each. Treatments are summarized
in Table 1. Each of the three groups was made up
entirely of individuals scoring at least one standard

56 JOEL B. COHEN AND ELLEN GOLDEN

TABLE 1
MEAN VALUES UNDER EACH TREATMENT CONDITION

Treatment

Uniformity in
others’ evaluations

High uniformity
Low uniformity
No information
No information

Visibility of
5s’ Behavior

Visible
Visible
Visible
Not

visible

X product
evaluation

10.75
9.83
9.17
8.50

deviation above the sample mean on one of the traits
measured by the CAD scale, a set of 35 items each
calling for a response relative to the desirability of
engaging in particularly characteristic types of inter-
personal behavior (Cohen, 1967).

Students were given to believe that a marketing
research project was being conducted to predict the
likely success of a new coffee product recently intro-
duced in the area. Under both the high uniformity-
visible and low uniformity-visible conditions, 5s were
individually shown a rating board containing other
5s’ evaluations of the coffee they were instructed to
taste and evaluate. The rating board was a large and
attractive piece of heavy cardboard subdivided into
five general categories for evaluation (from “worst
I’ve ever tasted” to “best I’ve ever tasted”), each, in
turn, broken down into three degrees of favorability.
(There were 15 response categories in all.) Under each
category were a set of small nails. Name tags were hung
on a predetermined number; the effect, in total, looked
very much like a frequency distribution histogram.
Name tags (many similar to, but none identical with,
other 5s’ names) were written in a large number of hand-
writing styles and with different pens and colors of ink.

Each 5 in these two treatments saw 16 name tags
representing others’ prior evaluations of the coffee.
In both treatments, the modal “evaluation” (preset
by £) was 12 (compared to the control group’s mean
evaluation of 8.5). We wished to produce a reasonable
discrepancy for those whose own estimates were at
the mean or several rating points above it, yet without
danger of a ceiling effect.

In the high-uniformity condition, nine of the name
tags were placed on the modal rating with the remaining
seven concentrated as follows: one on 10, two on 11,
and four on 13. In the low-uniformity condition, 5
name tags were placed on the modal position with the
others as follows: one on 5, one on 7, two on 8, one on
9, one on 10, two on 11, and three on 13. Thus, each 5
in the high-uniformity condition was exposed to the
same information (without risk of bias by confederates’
actions) with a substantially greater consensus than
5s in the low-uniformity condition. Any number of
variations in the dispersion of others’ evaluations
(including the identification of certain 5s) could be
used to easily vary and standardize the information
provided under possible treatments. Only the two

variations discussed above, however, were incorporated
into this study.

After tasting the coffee, each 5 in these two conditions
wrote his name on a tag and placed it on the board.
Since the name tag would always be placed last in any
column chosen, 5s could not reasonably expect their
evaluations to be hidden from others, no matter where
it was placed. After each 5 left the room, E removed
his name tag from the board.

The third treatment, the no information-visible con-
dition, was used to separate out the effects of informa-
tion presumably provided by others from the expecta-
tion that others will know how one has evaluated the
product. As such, this provides a control group for the
factor “uniformity of information,” as well as a direct
comparison with the no information-no visibility control
group (Treatment 4).4 The 5s in Treatment 3 were
given to believe that theirs was the first name tag to
be placed on the chart for a “new group of tasters.”
The E explained simply that the procedure was to let
the board get fairly well filled, copy a summary of the
evaluations, take the tags off, and start all over again.
This procedure was used for each of the 36 5s in this
condition.

The fourth treatment used a rating form identical
in scale to the rating board. Evaluations of the coffee
were obtained in the absence of information from others.
The rating form was simply taken from 5s and placed
in a stack.

In total, the methodology was designed to create a
setting in which a small to moderate amount of un-
certainty regarding a correct product evaluation could
be tied to variations in informational input from others.
No attempt was made to build in factors which would
tend to produce normative influences. In such a setting
it was hypothesized that informational social influence
would be accepted for its own sake and not for reasons
of conformity.

RESULTS

A 4 X 3 factorial analysis of variance (Treat-
ments X Interpersonal orientations) was run.
Differences in treatment effects were signifi-
cant and in the predicted direction (see Table
2).

Analysis of the significant treatment effect
by orthogonal trend components revealed that
99,01% of the variation in evaluation by treat-
ments (SS treatments = 99.69) may be pre-
dicted from a linear regression equation
(Winer, 1962). This tends to indicate (a) that
the acceptance of social influence was a linear

4 A before-after design with an initial private rating
and one after seeing others’ ratings would have per-
mitted equivalent comparisons. This present design
was chosen (a) to avoid sensitizing 5s to the fact that
the information is “supposed to” make a difference in
your evaluation and (b) to prevent postcommitment
dissonance from influencing the results.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND PRODUCT EVALUATION 57

function of the degree of uniformity or con-
sensus in the information presented, and (6)
that no complex interaction between uniform-
ity and visibility was present. Further analysis
of these interrelationships was conducted
using an orthogonal decomposition of the treat-
ment sum of squares and comparisons among
treatment sums (Winer, 1962). Table 3 sum-
marizes the four comparisons used to separate
out the effects of uniformity and visibility.
Comparison 1 in Table 3, for example, looks at
the following weighted linear comparison of
treatment sums: [(7\ + T2 + F3)/3] – T4.
Approximately 55% of the variation among
treatments (54.19/99.69) is due to the differ-
ence between the control group (no informa-
tion-no visibility) and the other treatments
combined.

To what extent is this difference due to the
information seemingly provided by other 5s
or to the known visibility of one’s own evalua-
tion? If the latter, then the informational social
influence hypothesis (i.e., influence is accepted
largely because it reduces uncertainty) cannot
be supported since 5s would appear to be more
concerned with anticipating others’ positive
or negative reactions. F ratios on compari-
son sums of squares (e.g., SSci/MS error)
permitted more definitive answers to these
questions.

Comparison 2 (see Table 3) reveals a signi-
ficant difference (and in the predicted direc-
tion) between the two groups provided with
information regarding others’ evaluations and
the group not given such information, all
three groups believing their evaluations to be
visible to others. Comparison 4, on the other
hand, indicates that visibility, per se, is not a
significant source of variation when informa-
tion is held constant. Approximately 30% of
the variation among treatments is due to

TABLE 2

ANALYSIS or VARIANCE

TABLE 3

COMPARISONS ON TREATMENT SU

MS

Source of variation

Treatments
Interpersonal orientations
Interaction
Error

df

3
2
6

132

MS

33.23
6.27
2.55
7.15

F

4.65*
.88
.36

parison

2
Ci
c,
Ca
Ci

High
uni-

formity
-visi-

ble

387
1
1
1
0

Low
uni-

formity
-visi-
ble

354
1
1

-1

0

No in-
forma-

tion
-visi-
ble

330
1

-2
0
1

No in-
forma-

tion
-not

visible

306
-3

0
0

-1
55

54.19
30.38
15.13
8.00

F

7.58**
4.25*
2.12
1.12

*p < .005.

Note.—C = comparison.
* p < .05.

** p < .01.

Comparison 2, while only 8% is due to Com-
parison 4. We must conclude that visibility is
not a significant feature of this social influence
situation in which informational social in-
fluence appears to predominate over normative
social influence.

Comparison 3 indicates that acceptance of
social influence is not significantly greater
under high uniformity than under low uni-
formity, although results are in the predicted
direction (see Table 1).

Interpersonal response orientations did not
prove to be a significant source of variation,
although the direction of results fits the under-
lying model. Compliant 5s were the most
favorable in their product evaluations
(X = 9.96). Aggressive 5s were least favorable
(X = 9.25_), while detached 5s were inter-
mediate (X = 9.48).

DISCUSSION

These results provide strong confirmation
that social influence is operative in situations
not characterized by strong normative pres-
sures (cohesive groups, relevant issues, estab-
lished norms, sanctions, etc.). Buying decisions,
even when the product or brand being judged
is not novel or unfamiliar, seem to be char-
acterized by uncertainty. This may stem, in
part, from a lack of objective standards and a
lack of reliable comparative brand information.
Such conditions should tend to produce a
heightened readiness to respond to apparently
competent information from others.

The absence of a more pronounced differ-
ence between high- and low-uniformity treat-
ment groups is somewhat surprising. Our
manipulation of uniformity was tied to a range

58 JOEL B. COHEN AND ELLEN GOLDEN

of 5s’ coffee evaluations, however, rather than
markedly contrasting conditions of unanimous
agreement among others versus sharp disagree-
ment. Uniformity, in this study, is a somewhat
more involved notion than in most similar
studies. In many previous studies, information
from others was uniform if it was absolutely
identical (i.e., each confederate gave the exact
same answer or caused the exact same light to
go on). Here, the focus is on product evalua-
tion which can only be forced into a similar
conception of uniformity either by collapsing
the evaluation task into two or three cate-
gories (so as to make perfect consensus believa-
ble) or by telling S you are providing him with
consensus data (e.g., group means).

In reality, of course, it is seldom that no
variation exists in the advice and opinions
others so thoughtfully supply. We do not move
instantly from uncertainty to certainty by
virtue of the information received. There is
doubt and disagreement, and it may be of
some value for researchers to more realistically
deal with variance in information, specifically
in so far as learning how consumers respond to
it. It may be that consumers (or at least our
5s) tend to rely on specific information aggrega-
tion schemes such as a modal evaluation or
some other simplifying rule of thumb in dealing
with the results of diversity in product ratings.
Since the mode was the same in both the high-
uniformity and low-uniformity conditions (12
in both cases), we might possibly have pro-
vided much less of a difference in the two
uniformity conditions than was desirable for
maximal effect upon evaluations.

The failure of interpersonal response traits
to be a more discriminating predictor variable
may, to a large extent, be an artifact of the
methodology employed. We note with interest
that compliant 5s gave evaluations closest to
the mode, and, hence, more similar to their
peers. Aggressive 5s were furthest from the
mode, thus consistent with a movement against
the typical response. Detached 5s were inter-
mediate, neither responding strongly pro norm
nor counter norm. It may be recalled that the
methodology minimized social interaction and
direct influence attempts, two of the factors in
social influence situations which one would
expect to be most strongly related to this type
of treatment of individual differences.

CONCLUSION

The 5s asked to evaluate an unknown brand
of coffee were significantly influenced by rating
distributions (other 5s evaluations) of both
relatively high and low concentration (uniform-
ity). There was some tendency for acceptance
of the modal evaluation to be greater under
conditions of higher uniformity. The difference
between high- and low-uniformity conditions
was, however, not significant. This may have
been due to the uniformity manipulations
which dealt more with degree of dispersion
than more absolute dichotomies. Perceived
visibility of 5s’ subsequent ratings was not a
significant factor leading to the acceptance of
information from others. Differences in 5s’
interpersonal orientations did not prove to
be a significant factor, although results were
in the predicted direction.

Our data suggest that even for a familiar
product whose taste was the sole criterion for
evaluation, individual judgments may be
modifiable by the perceived evaluations of
others. No attempt was made to convey infor-
mation of a more expert nature or in any way
encourage 5s to feel the information was
somehow reliable or accurate. Thus, even under
minimal conditions for social influence, such
information had a significant effect on product
evaluation. These results are interpreted as
supporting the pervasiveness and significance
of informational social influence even when
conditions favoring normative compliance are
largely absent.

REFERENCES

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T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings
in social psychology. (3rd ed.) New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, 1958.

CAMPBELL, R. The utilization of expert information in
business forecasting. Unpublished doctoral disserta-
tion, Graduate School of Business Administration,
University of California at Los Angeles, 1966.

COHEN, J. B. An interpersonal orientation to the study
of consumer behavior. Journal of Marketing Research,
1967, 4, 270-278.

CRUTCHMELD, R. S. Conformity and character.
American Psychologist, 1955, 10, 191-198.

DETJTSCH, M., & GERARD, H. B. A study of normative
and informational social influence upon individual
judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psy-
chology, 1955, 51, 629-636.

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HORNEY, K. Our inner conflicts. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1945.

JONES, E. E., & GERARD, H. B. Foundations of social
psychology. New York: Wiley, 1967.

KELMAN, H. C. Processes of opinion change. Public
Opinion Quarterly, 1961, 25, 57-78.

SHERIF, M. Group influences upon the formation of
norms and attitudes. In E. E. Maccoby, T. M.
Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in
social psychology. (3rd ed.) New York: Holt, Rine-
hart and Winston, 1958.

STAFFORD, J. E. Effects of group influence on consumer
brand preferences. Journal of Marketing Research,
1966, 3, 68-75.

VENKATESAN, M. Consumer behavior: Conformity and
independence. Journal of Marketing Research, 1966,
3, 384r-387.

WINER, B. J. Statistical principles in experimental design,
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962.

(Received November 13, 1970)

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Florida 33199, Phone: (305) 348-4054, Fax: (305) 348-6055, Odyssey: 206.107.42.95, e-mail: upill@fiu.edu.

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Morality and Conformity: The Ach Paradigm
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Morality and conformity: The Asch paradigm

applied to moral decisions

Payel Kundu & Denise Dellarosa Cummins

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Morality and conformity: The Asch paradigm
applied to moral decisions

Payel Kundu and Denise Dellarosa Cummins
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Morality has long been considered an inherent quality, an internal moral
compass that is unswayed by the actions of those around us. The Solomon
Asch paradigm was employed to gauge whether moral decision making is
subject to conformity under social pressure as other types of decision making
have been shown to be. Participants made decisions about moral dilemmas
either alone or in a group of confederates posing as peers. On a majority of
trials confederates rendered decisions that were contrary to judgments
typically elicited by the dilemmas. The results showed a pronounced effect
of conformity: Compared to the control condition, permissible actions were
deemed less permissible when confederates found them objectionable, and
impermissible actions were judged more permissible if confederates judged
them so.

Keywords: Moral judgment; Conformity; Asch; Decision making.

Traditional theories of moral psychology endorsed the Kantian view that
moral judgments are the outcome of conscious deliberation based on moral
rules, an internal ‘‘moral compass’’ (Kant, 1785, 1787; Kohlberg, 1969).
However, recent studies have shown that moral judgment can be strongly
swayed by seemingly irrelevant contextual factors. People judge actions as
more morally wrong if they are primed to feel disgust before making a moral
judgment (Schnall, Benton, & Harvey, 2008; Schnall, Haidt, Clore, &
Jordan, 2008), while priming positive emotions makes moral transgressions
sometimes appear more permissible (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006). Marked
order effects have also been reported in which the judged moral
permissibility of a dilemma varies as a function of the nature of the

Address correspondence to: E-mail: dcummins@illinois.edu

The authors thank Andrew Higgins, Joseph Spino, and John Clevenger for their assistance in

conducting the experiment. This work was supported by research funds provided by the

University of Illinois.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE, 2013
Vol. 8, No. 4, 268–279, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2012.727767

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

Morality and conformity: The Asch paradigm
applied to moral decisions
Payel Kundu and Denise Dellarosa Cummins
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Morality has long been considered an inherent quality, an internal moral
compass that is unswayed by the actions of those around us. The Solomon
Asch paradigm was employed to gauge whether moral decision making is
subject to conformity under social pressure as other types of decision making
have been shown to be. Participants made decisions about moral dilemmas
either alone or in a group of confederates posing as peers. On a majority of
trials confederates rendered decisions that were contrary to judgments
typically elicited by the dilemmas. The results showed a pronounced effect
of conformity: Compared to the control condition, permissible actions were
deemed less permissible when confederates found them objectionable, and
impermissible actions were judged more permissible if confederates judged
them so.
Keywords: Moral judgment; Conformity; Asch; Decision making.
Traditional theories of moral psychology endorsed the Kantian view that
moral judgments are the outcome of conscious deliberation based on moral
rules, an internal ‘‘moral compass’’ (Kant, 1785, 1787; Kohlberg, 1969).
However, recent studies have shown that moral judgment can be strongly
swayed by seemingly irrelevant contextual factors. People judge actions as
more morally wrong if they are primed to feel disgust before making a moral
judgment (Schnall, Benton, & Harvey, 2008; Schnall, Haidt, Clore, &
Jordan, 2008), while priming positive emotions makes moral transgressions
sometimes appear more permissible (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006). Marked
order effects have also been reported in which the judged moral
permissibility of a dilemma varies as a function of the nature of the
Address correspondence to: E-mail: dcummins@illinois.edu
The authors thank Andrew Higgins, Joseph Spino, and John Clevenger for their assistance in
conducting the experiment. This work was supported by research funds provided by the
University of Illinois.

dilemmas that preceded it (Nichols & Mallon, 2006), an effect that was
replicated among expert moral reasoners (Schwitzgebel & Cushman, 2012).

One contextual factor that has not been adequately investigated is that of
social consensus on moral decision making. There has been a plethora of
research on decision-making conformity and the situations in which it can
be induced. Perhaps the most famous are the classic studies conducted by
Solomon Asch (1956) using simple visual discrimination. Asch required
participants to choose which of three lines of different lengths matched the
length of a target line. Participants made decisions in a group context which
included six to eight people, and all but one person was a confederate of the
experimenter. Over the course of 18 trials the confederates gave correct
answers on only 6 trials. Asch found that, while participants made errors on
fewer than 1% of trials when deciding alone, they made errors on 37% of
trials in the group condition.

Although numerous studies have been conducted since the publication of
Asch’s classic paper, the majority have as their primary aim identifying the
motivations underlying conforming behavior (see Cialdini & Goldstein,
2004, for a review). Three core motivations have been identified: a desire
for accuracy, a desire for affiliation, and the maintenance of a positive
self-concept. Recent work by Erb and colleagues (Erb, Bohner, Rank,
& Einwiller, 2002; Erb, Bohner, Schmalzle, & Rank, 1998) found that
the contribution of these factors varies as a function of the individuals’
prior beliefs toward the topic under consideration. When people’s
prior beliefs are strongly opposed to the position held by the majority,
conformity is driven by a desire to fit in. But when people hold moderately
or no strong prior beliefs concerning the topic, conformity is driven by a
belief that the majority view is more likely to constitute an objective
consensus.

It is assumed that people violate a norm of rationality when they allow
social consensus to override facts. Campbell (1990) argued that yielding to
conformity allows error and confusion to spread throughout a group, while
independent decision making and resistance to conformity is socially
productive because it allows errors to be corrected. Resistance to conformity
is therefore considered both moral and rational. It is moral because it
reflects adherence to principle, and it is rational because it introduces fact-
based judgment into the group decision-making process.

This raises the following question: Can conformity influence something
we consider to be an integral part of our identities; namely, morality? Unlike
visual decision making where correct answers are clear and unambiguous,
moral dilemmas are dilemmas precisely because the correct course of action
is unclear. Yet the laws and social institutions of virtually every culture are
grounded in moral principles, such as avoiding harm to others and fairness
in social transactions (Haidt, 2007). People are expected to rely on culturally

MORALITY AND CONFORMITY 269

dictated moral principles as well as their own personal moral intuitions

when choosing when and whether to aid others in distress, how to judge the

culpability of parties involved in wrongdoing or disputes, and which

behaviors should be subject to social and legal censure. Our behavior is

frequently judged on the basis of whether we acted in accordance with our

moral principles, or whether we simply chose to ‘‘go along to get along’’, as

would be the case if we allowed social conformity to override moral

principles. Taking this course of action typically makes one the target of

criticism and social censure. An over-reliance on social conformity in

guiding one’s actions is also the hallmark of conventional (stage 3) moral

reasoning in Kohlberg’s six-stage theory of moral development; the highest

level of moral development (stage 6) is rooted in reliance on moral principles

to guide behavior (Kohlberg, 1969).
Despite the ubiquity and gravity of moral judgment in our everyday lives,

scant research exists on the impact of conformity on moral judgment.

Crutchfield (1955) tested the impact of majority opinion on judgments in a

variety of different domains, including agreement with morally relevant

statements such as ‘‘Free speech being a privilege rather than a right, it is

proper for a society to suspend free speech whenever it itself is threatened.’’

He found that only 19% of participants agreed with such statements when

alone, but 58% agreed when confronted with a unanimous group who

endorsed the statements. This is surprising given that people have been

found to reject and distance themselves socially from morally dissimilar

others (Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005), and should therefore have little

desire to conform to the group. Indeed, Hornsey and colleagues (Hornsey,

Majkut, Terry, & McKimmie, 2003; Hornsey, Smith, & Begg, 2007) found

that participants with strong moral convictions about a social issue

expressed stronger intentions to verbally oppose the issue when they

believed they held a minority view than when they believed they held the

majority view. Importantly, these intentions did not translate to actual

behavior. Aramovich, Lytle, and Skitka (2012) assessed participants’ prior

beliefs concerning the acceptability of torture, along with their prior moral

commitments, socio-political attitudes, and other factors. The participants

then took part in an allegedly group discussion concerning the use of torture

via computer-simulated chat room; the participants believed they were

discussing the topic with fellow students. During the simulated group

discussion, 80% of participants reported less opposition to torture than they

had reported at pretest, but strength of moral conviction about torture was

negatively associated with the degree of pro-torture attitude change.

Although these results addressed only a single moral topic (i.e., permissi-

bility of torture), they suggest that moral judgment may in fact be

susceptible to conformity pressure.

270 KUNDU AND CUMMINS

dictated moral principles as well as their own personal moral intuitions
when choosing when and whether to aid others in distress, how to judge the
culpability of parties involved in wrongdoing or disputes, and which
behaviors should be subject to social and legal censure. Our behavior is
frequently judged on the basis of whether we acted in accordance with our
moral principles, or whether we simply chose to ‘‘go along to get along’’, as
would be the case if we allowed social conformity to override moral
principles. Taking this course of action typically makes one the target of
criticism and social censure. An over-reliance on social conformity in
guiding one’s actions is also the hallmark of conventional (stage 3) moral
reasoning in Kohlberg’s six-stage theory of moral development; the highest
level of moral development (stage 6) is rooted in reliance on moral principles
to guide behavior (Kohlberg, 1969).
Despite the ubiquity and gravity of moral judgment in our everyday lives,
scant research exists on the impact of conformity on moral judgment.
Crutchfield (1955) tested the impact of majority opinion on judgments in a
variety of different domains, including agreement with morally relevant
statements such as ‘‘Free speech being a privilege rather than a right, it is
proper for a society to suspend free speech whenever it itself is threatened.’’
He found that only 19% of participants agreed with such statements when
alone, but 58% agreed when confronted with a unanimous group who
endorsed the statements. This is surprising given that people have been
found to reject and distance themselves socially from morally dissimilar
others (Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005), and should therefore have little
desire to conform to the group. Indeed, Hornsey and colleagues (Hornsey,
Majkut, Terry, & McKimmie, 2003; Hornsey, Smith, & Begg, 2007) found
that participants with strong moral convictions about a social issue
expressed stronger intentions to verbally oppose the issue when they
believed they held a minority view than when they believed they held the
majority view. Importantly, these intentions did not translate to actual
behavior. Aramovich, Lytle, and Skitka (2012) assessed participants’ prior
beliefs concerning the acceptability of torture, along with their prior moral
commitments, socio-political attitudes, and other factors. The participants
then took part in an allegedly group discussion concerning the use of torture
via computer-simulated chat room; the participants believed they were
discussing the topic with fellow students. During the simulated group
discussion, 80% of participants reported less opposition to torture than they
had reported at pretest, but strength of moral conviction about torture was
negatively associated with the degree of pro-torture attitude change.
Although these results addressed only a single moral topic (i.e., permissi-
bility of torture), they suggest that moral judgment may in fact be
susceptible to conformity pressure.

Importantly, a growing number of studies have shown that judged moral
permissibility varies systematically with the degree of conflict between
morally relevant dilemma features (Greene et al., 2009). Dilemmas
describing actions that maximize aggregate benefits (‘‘greater good’’) while
violating no a priori moral rules yield high endorsement rates, and actions
that fail to maximize such benefits while simultaneously violating one or
more moral rule yield very low endorsement rates. When the two conflict,
causing the decision maker to choose between violating moral principles or
sacrificing the greater good, low decisional consensus obtains. In these
circumstances people are less certain what the morally permissible course of
action should be.

In the present study we used a modification of Asch’s methods to
investigate the impact of social consensus on moral decision making.
Participants were asked to render moral judgments for a series of dilemmas
either alone or in a group that included three confederates. Unlike Asch’s
participants, however, our participants rendered judgments by choosing a
number from a Likert-type scale that described a range of permissibility
ratings, including ‘‘uncertain’’. This allowed greater variability among
confederate judgments while still creating confederate consensus. If moral
judgment is influenced by social context, then participants’ ratings should be
swayed in the direction of the confederates’ atypical judgments compared to
ratings given in the absence of social pressure.

METHOD

Participants

A total of 33 participants were recruited from the University of Illinois
Psychology paid-participant website. There were 17 participants (12 female)
in the control condition, and 16 participants (9 female) in the experimental
condition.

Materials

A total of 12 dilemmas were selected from materials used by Greene, Morelli,
Lowenberg, Nystrom, and Cohen (2008). They differed along three
dimensions: (a) percent ‘‘permissible’’ judgments, (b) use of personal force,
and (c) whether the harm inflicted was intentional or a side effect of the action
taken. The latter two constitute deontological criteria that have been shown
to influence moral judgment (Greene et al., 2009). According to Greene et al.
(2009), an agent applies personal force when the force that directly impacts
the other is generated by the agent’s muscles and is not mediated by
intervening mechanisms that are distinct from the agent’s muscular force,
such as firing a gun. The vignette names, deontological values, percent ‘‘yes’’

MORALITY AND CONFORMITY 271

(permissible) judgments from Green et al., (2008), and confederate judgments
are displayed in Table 1.

Each vignette was printed on single sheet of paper with a 1–7 rating scale
underneath. The labels for the rating scale were (from 1 to 7, respectively)
Highly Impermissible, Impermissible, Somewhat Impermissible, Unsure,
Somewhat Permissible, Permissible, and Highly Permissible.

Four vignettes served as fillers; confederates always gave ratings that were
consistent with the judgment typically elicited by these vignettes (i.e., 6 or 7
for Submarine and Modified Bomb, which people typically judge
permissible; 1 or 2 for Smother for Dollars and Hard Times, which people
typically judge impermissible). Six of the experimental vignettes fell into two
categories. The first contained vignettes that are a majority of people
typically judge to be permissible (Standard Trolley, Standard Fumes, and
Vaccine Test), and for which the confederates gave atypical judgments
(i.e., ratings of 1 or 2). The second contained vignettes that a majority of
people typically judge to be impermissible (Sacrifice, Safari, and Vitamins),
and for which the confederates gave atypical judgments (i.e., ratings of
6 or 7). Finally, two vignettes were included that typically elicit high
disagreement concerning permissibility. Confederates rated one of these

TABLE 1
Vignette title, deontological features, percent acceptance rates, and judgments given

by confederates for the experiment materials

Vignette

Personal

force Harm

%

Yes
a

%

Yes
b

Confederate

judgment

Fillers

Submarine No Intentional 91 80 Permissible

Modified Bomb Yes Intentional 90 85 Permissible

Smother for Dollars Yes Intentional 7 8 Impermissible

Hard Times No Side Effect 9 3 Impermissible

Experimental

Standard Trolley No Side Effect 85 80 Impermissible

Standard Fumes No Side Effect 75 67 Impermissible

Vaccine Test No Side Effect 79 68 Impermissible

Sacrifice
c

Yes Intentional 51 28 Permissible

Safari Yes Intentional 22 28 Permissible

Vitamins Yes Intentional 35 38 Permissible

Sophie’s Choice No Side Effect 62 41 Impermissible

Crying Baby Yes Intentional 60 40 Permissible

a
Values reported by Greene et al. (2008).

b
Values reported by Cummins and Cummins (2012, Exp 1) based on decisions made by UIUC

students.
c
We opted to use Cummins and Cummins (2012) data to classify this vignette because

participants in this study were also drawn from UIUC students.

272 KUNDU AND CUMMINS

(permissible) judgments from Green et al., (2008), and confederate judgments
are displayed in Table 1.
Each vignette was printed on single sheet of paper with a 1–7 rating scale
underneath. The labels for the rating scale were (from 1 to 7, respectively)
Highly Impermissible, Impermissible, Somewhat Impermissible, Unsure,
Somewhat Permissible, Permissible, and Highly Permissible.
Four vignettes served as fillers; confederates always gave ratings that were
consistent with the judgment typically elicited by these vignettes (i.e., 6 or 7
for Submarine and Modified Bomb, which people typically judge
permissible; 1 or 2 for Smother for Dollars and Hard Times, which people
typically judge impermissible). Six of the experimental vignettes fell into two
categories. The first contained vignettes that are a majority of people
typically judge to be permissible (Standard Trolley, Standard Fumes, and
Vaccine Test), and for which the confederates gave atypical judgments
(i.e., ratings of 1 or 2). The second contained vignettes that a majority of
people typically judge to be impermissible (Sacrifice, Safari, and Vitamins),
and for which the confederates gave atypical judgments (i.e., ratings of
6 or 7). Finally, two vignettes were included that typically elicit high
disagreement concerning permissibility. Confederates rated one of these
TABLE 1
Vignette title, deontological features, percent acceptance rates, and judgments given
by confederates for the experiment materials
Vignette
Personal
force Harm
%
Yes
a
%
Yes
b
Confederate
judgment
Fillers
Submarine No Intentional 91 80 Permissible
Modified Bomb Yes Intentional 90 85 Permissible
Smother for Dollars Yes Intentional 7 8 Impermissible
Hard Times No Side Effect 9 3 Impermissible
Experimental
Standard Trolley No Side Effect 85 80 Impermissible
Standard Fumes No Side Effect 75 67 Impermissible
Vaccine Test No Side Effect 79 68 Impermissible
Sacrifice
c
Yes Intentional 51 28 Permissible
Safari Yes Intentional 22 28 Permissible
Vitamins Yes Intentional 35 38 Permissible
Sophie’s Choice No Side Effect 62 41 Impermissible
Crying Baby Yes Intentional 60 40 Permissible
a
Values reported by Greene et al. (2008).
b
Values reported by Cummins and Cummins (2012, Exp 1) based on decisions made by UIUC
students.
c
We opted to use Cummins and Cummins (2012) data to classify this vignette because
participants in this study were also drawn from UIUC students.

(Sophie’s Choice) as impermissible and the other (Crying Baby) as
permissible. Examples of the vignettes are shown in Table 2. Texts for all
vignettes can be found by clicking the supplementary materials link
provided in Greene et al. (2008).

Procedure

In the control condition the experimenter and participant were seated at a
conference table in a private room. In the experimental condition three
confederates came into the room around the same time as the real participant
and posed as real participants. The confederates were three male graduate
students. The confederates took care to sit around the table so that the three
of them were in consecutive seats and the real participant was at one end.

TABLE 2
Examples of vignettes used in the experiment

Filler: Submarine: You are the captain of a military submarine

traveling under a large iceberg. An explosion has damaged

your oxygen supply and injured one of your crew. The

injured crew member cannot survive his wounds. There is

not enough oxygen left for the entire crew to make it to the

surface. The only way to save the other crew members is to

shoot dead the injured crew member so that there will be just

enough oxygen for the rest of the crew to survive. Is it

morally permissible to kill the injured crew member under

the circumstances?

Weak Consensus Crying Baby: Enemy soldiers are approaching your village.

You and your townspeople are hiding. Your baby begins to

cry loudly, which will surely alert the soldiers to your

location. If you cover your baby’s face to muffle the sound

until the soldiers leave, you will smother him. Is it morally

permissible to smother your baby under the circumstances?

Strong Consensus – ‘‘Yes’’ Standard Trolley: A runaway trolley is approaching a fork in

the tracks. On the left track are five people. On the right

track is one person. If you do nothing the trolley will go left,

causing the deaths of five people. The only way to avoid this

is to push a switch that will cause the trolley to go right,

causing the death of the single person. Is it morally

permissible to push the switch under the circumstances?

Strong Consensus – ‘‘No’’ Sacrifice: You, your spouse, and your four children are

crossing a mountain range on your return journey to your

homeland. You have inadvertently set up camp on a local

clan’s sacred burial ground. The leader of the clan says if

you kill your oldest son with the clan leader’s sword, he will

let the rest of you live. Is it morally permissible to kill your

oldest son under the circumstances?

MORALITY AND CONFORMITY 273

Participants were instructed that they would be asked to make a series of

decisions about moral dilemmas for which there were no right or wrong
answers. They were told we were interested in their responses to help us

choose materials for future research. Folders were distributed which

contained the vignettes. The folders given to the confederates had a small
mark beside the rating they were supposed to give for each vignette.

Confederates were not blind to the experimental hypotheses, and so were

trained and instructed to respond according to script, without giving
explanation or commentary on their choices. The answers confederates gave

were distributed across the extreme end of the appropriate range (i.e.,

‘‘permissible’’ could be 6 or 7, and ‘‘impermissible’’ could be 1 or 2). The first
vignette was always Submarine, and the confederates gave a typical answer.

The remaining sheets were shuffled between sessions. Each vignette was read
aloud once and participants were given about 4 seconds to consider the

situation. They were then asked to announce their answers aloud in turn as

the experimenter recorded their choices. The real participant was always
prompted to answer last after all of the confederates had given their answers.

It was explained that answers were to be given aloud in order to save time and

so that the printed materials could be re-used. After the experiment
concluded the purpose of the experiment was explained, including the use

of deception. Participants were not queried about their beliefs concerning the

true purpose of the experiment prior to debriefing, although the majority
spontaneously expressed surprise when informed of the deception, particu-

larly that the graduate students were confederates and not true participants.

RESULTS

If participants’ moral judgments were swayed by social consensus, then we
would expect that ratings of vignettes typically judged permissible should

receive lower permissibility ratings in the group condition than in the

control condition, while ratings of vignettes typically judged impermissible
should receive higher permissibility ratings in the group condition than in

the control condition. To test this prediction, ratings for vignettes that

typically yield strong consensus were analyzed separately from those that
typically yield weak consensus.

For the strong consensus vignettes, ratings were averaged across the three

‘‘impermissible’’ vignettes (Sacrifice, Safari, and Vitamins), and across the
three ‘‘permissible’’ vignettes (Standard Trolley, Standard Fumes, and

Vaccine Test). These mean ratings were analyzed via mixed ANOVA using

condition (Control or Group) and sex (Female or Male) as between-
participant variables, and moral category (Impermissible or Permissible)

as repeated measures. The analysis returned a single significant effect,

274 KUNDU AND CUMMINS

Participants were instructed that they would be asked to make a series of
decisions about moral dilemmas for which there were no right or wrong
answers. They were told we were interested in their responses to help us
choose materials for future research. Folders were distributed which
contained the vignettes. The folders given to the confederates had a small
mark beside the rating they were supposed to give for each vignette.
Confederates were not blind to the experimental hypotheses, and so were
trained and instructed to respond according to script, without giving
explanation or commentary on their choices. The answers confederates gave
were distributed across the extreme end of the appropriate range (i.e.,
‘‘permissible’’ could be 6 or 7, and ‘‘impermissible’’ could be 1 or 2). The first
vignette was always Submarine, and the confederates gave a typical answer.
The remaining sheets were shuffled between sessions. Each vignette was read
aloud once and participants were given about 4 seconds to consider the
situation. They were then asked to announce their answers aloud in turn as
the experimenter recorded their choices. The real participant was always
prompted to answer last after all of the confederates had given their answers.
It was explained that answers were to be given aloud in order to save time and
so that the printed materials could be re-used. After the experiment
concluded the purpose of the experiment was explained, including the use
of deception. Participants were not queried about their beliefs concerning the
true purpose of the experiment prior to debriefing, although the majority
spontaneously expressed surprise when informed of the deception, particu-
larly that the graduate students were confederates and not true participants.
RESULTS
If participants’ moral judgments were swayed by social consensus, then we
would expect that ratings of vignettes typically judged permissible should
receive lower permissibility ratings in the group condition than in the
control condition, while ratings of vignettes typically judged impermissible
should receive higher permissibility ratings in the group condition than in
the control condition. To test this prediction, ratings for vignettes that
typically yield strong consensus were analyzed separately from those that
typically yield weak consensus.
For the strong consensus vignettes, ratings were averaged across the three
‘‘impermissible’’ vignettes (Sacrifice, Safari, and Vitamins), and across the
three ‘‘permissible’’ vignettes (Standard Trolley, Standard Fumes, and
Vaccine Test). These mean ratings were analyzed via mixed ANOVA using
condition (Control or Group) and sex (Female or Male) as between-
participant variables, and moral category (Impermissible or Permissible)
as repeated measures. The analysis returned a single significant effect,

the interaction of moral category and condition, F(1, 29) ¼ 23.57,
MSe ¼ 1.29, p 5 .0001, w2¼ .45. Four planned comparisons were conducted.

Looking within groups, the control group did indeed find the vignettes in
the permissible category more permissible (M ¼ 4.45) than vignettes in the
impermissible category (M ¼ 3.23), t(16) ¼ 5.31, p 5 .0001, Cohen’s d ¼ .80,
thereby replicating the findings of past research using these vignettes. The
social context group, however, departed significantly from this oft-replicated
consensual pattern: When confederates judged highly impermissible moral
transgressions to be permissible, participants also rated them as permissible
(M ¼ 4.37), and when confederates judged highly permissible vignettes to be
impermissible, so did participants (M ¼ 2.67), t(15) ¼ 3.38, p 5 .004,
Cohen’s d ¼ .66. Comparing vignette ratings across groups also yielded a
strong conformity effect: As predicted, vignettes that are typically judged
permissible were found to be significantly less so under dissenting social
pressure (M ¼ 2.67) than when participants made decisions on their own
(M ¼ 4.45), t(31) ¼ 4.18, p 5 .0001, Cohen’s d ¼ .62. Conversely, vignettes
that are normally judged highly impermissible were rated as more
permissible when confederates said so (M ¼ 4.38) than when participants
made decisions by themselves (M ¼ 3.23), t(31) ¼ 2.74, p 5 .01,
Cohen’s d ¼ .62. These results clearly show that our participants’ judgments
were strongly swayed by social context, even for vignettes that typically elicit
the opposite decision from an overwhelming majority of decision makers.

When reasoning under uncertainty, we would expect that decision makers
would be more likely to conform to strong group consensus, and that is
what we found when we analyzed the two vignettes that typically elicit low
decision consensus. Ratings were analyzed via mixed ANOVA using
condition (Control or Group) and sex (Female or Male) as between-
participant factors and dilemma (Sophie’s Choice and Crying Baby) as
repeated measures. The main effect of Dilemma was significant,
F(1, 29) ¼ 6.19, MSe ¼ 2.20, p 5 .02, w2¼ .18. This effect was modified by
an interaction with Condition, F(1, 29) ¼ 21.67, MSe ¼ 2.2, p 5 .0001,
w2¼ .43. Four planned comparisons were conducted.
Looking first within groups, the control group did indeed give statistically

equivalent ratings to Sophie’s Choice (M ¼ 3.53) and to Crying Baby
(M ¼ 2.76), t(16) ¼ 1.54, p ¼ .14. In the social context group the confederates
rated Sophie’s Choice as highly impermissible and Crying Baby as highly
permissible, and participants followed their lead. When deciding among
dissenting confederates, participants found Sophie’s Choice to be far less
permissible (M ¼ 2.00) than Crying Baby (M ¼ 4.75), t(15) ¼ 5.46, p 5 .0001,
Cohen’s d ¼ .82. Comparing group performance on each vignette, partici-
pants were found to rate Crying Baby as significantly more permissible when
confederates rated it so (M ¼ 4.75) than when they made decisions alone
(M ¼ 2.76), t(31) ¼ 3.31, p 5 .002, Cohen’s d ¼ .51. Conversely, participants

MORALITY AND CONFORMITY 275

found Sophie’s Choice far less permissible (M ¼ 2.00) when confederates
rated it as impermissible than when they made decisions on their own
(M ¼ 3.53), t(31) ¼ 2.66, p 5 .025, Cohen’s d ¼ .43. Clearly, our participants’
judgments regarding these ‘‘ambiguous’’ moral dilemmas were strongly
swayed by social consensus.

DISCUSSION

Our results clearly show a strong conformity effect, indicating that moral
decision making is strongly influenced by social context, thereby replicating
Asch’s seminal finding in a new domain. Given that our participants’ moral
judgments were so strongly influenced by social consensus, the next
important questions are whether this behavior (a) is rational and (b) is
itself morally acceptable.

Conformity is considered irrational only if one believes that social
consensus should be awarded less weight in decision making than one’s own
information or beliefs. But according to rational-actor models, people are
not necessarily behaving irrationally when they conform if they believe that
conformity maximizes the expected value of the decision. Consider the Asch
situation from a game-theoretic perspective (Krueger & Massey, 2009; Luce
& Raiffa, 1957). Participants are assumed to prefer to speak the truth, but
the strength of this preference is modulated by what others do. This yields
four possible outcomes that can be ordered in terms of payoffs to the
participant. If the participant is purely self-regarding, then the payoff matrix
yields the following: Everyone tells the truth 4 Participant tells the truth but
others lie (Positive Resistance) 4 Everyone lies 4 Participant lies while
others tell the truth (Negative Resistance). Under these circumstances, the
dominant choice (the best choice regardless of what other parties do) is to
tell the truth. If others tell the truth, the payoff is greater for the participant
if he or she tells the truth as well. If others lie instead, the payoff is still
greater for telling the truth.

But if we assume that people are a mixture of selfish and other-regarding
(benevolent) preferences, the payoff matrix can be modeled as the sum of
one’s own payoffs and others’ payoffs weighted by 1/N, where N is the
number of other people in the group (van Lange, 1999). This yields the
following: Everyone tells the truth 4 Participant tells the truth but others lie
(Positive Resistance) ¼ Participant lies while others tell the truth (Negative
Resistance) ¼ Everyone lies. Now there is no dominant choice. If others tell
the truth, the payoff is greater for telling the truth as well. But if others lie,
then the payoffs for being truthful and for going along with the lie are
the same.

Why would people choose to go along with the lie rather than tell
the truth? One explanation is that pronounced social consensus in a

276 KUNDU AND CUMMINS

found Sophie’s Choice far less permissible (M ¼ 2.00) when confederates
rated it as impermissible than when they made decisions on their own
(M ¼ 3.53), t(31) ¼ 2.66, p 5 .025, Cohen’s d ¼ .43. Clearly, our participants’
judgments regarding these ‘‘ambiguous’’ moral dilemmas were strongly
swayed by social consensus.
DISCUSSION
Our results clearly show a strong conformity effect, indicating that moral
decision making is strongly influenced by social context, thereby replicating
Asch’s seminal finding in a new domain. Given that our participants’ moral
judgments were so strongly influenced by social consensus, the next
important questions are whether this behavior (a) is rational and (b) is
itself morally acceptable.
Conformity is considered irrational only if one believes that social
consensus should be awarded less weight in decision making than one’s own
information or beliefs. But according to rational-actor models, people are
not necessarily behaving irrationally when they conform if they believe that
conformity maximizes the expected value of the decision. Consider the Asch
situation from a game-theoretic perspective (Krueger & Massey, 2009; Luce
& Raiffa, 1957). Participants are assumed to prefer to speak the truth, but
the strength of this preference is modulated by what others do. This yields
four possible outcomes that can be ordered in terms of payoffs to the
participant. If the participant is purely self-regarding, then the payoff matrix
yields the following: Everyone tells the truth 4 Participant tells the truth but
others lie (Positive Resistance) 4 Everyone lies 4 Participant lies while
others tell the truth (Negative Resistance). Under these circumstances, the
dominant choice (the best choice regardless of what other parties do) is to
tell the truth. If others tell the truth, the payoff is greater for the participant
if he or she tells the truth as well. If others lie instead, the payoff is still
greater for telling the truth.
But if we assume that people are a mixture of selfish and other-regarding
(benevolent) preferences, the payoff matrix can be modeled as the sum of
one’s own payoffs and others’ payoffs weighted by 1/N, where N is the
number of other people in the group (van Lange, 1999). This yields the
following: Everyone tells the truth 4 Participant tells the truth but others lie
(Positive Resistance) ¼ Participant lies while others tell the truth (Negative
Resistance) ¼ Everyone lies. Now there is no dominant choice. If others tell
the truth, the payoff is greater for telling the truth as well. But if others lie,
then the payoffs for being truthful and for going along with the lie are
the same.
Why would people choose to go along with the lie rather than tell
the truth? One explanation is that pronounced social consensus in a

decision-making context signals the creation of a social norm; that is, an
explicit or implicit rule concerning what one is permitted, obligated, or
forbidden to do in the current context (Cummins, 1998, 2000, 2005).
Deviations from expectation in nonsocial contexts (such as ‘‘oddball’’
detection in visual and semantic tasks) typically elicit activation in neural
reinforcement learning circuitry. The same network has been shown to be
active when there is conflict with a social norm (Klucharev Hytonen,
Rijpkema, Smidts, & Fernandez, 2009). When conforming to a norm, brain
regions associated with anxiety or disgust (such as the insula) are active,
indicating that conforming comes at an emotional cost (Berns, Capra,
Moore, & Noussair, 2010). These error-related neural signals alert the
reasoner when a decision that deviates from a particular social norm or a
broader social norm that one should both trust others and reciprocate trust
that has been placed in oneself.

Another reason why people may conform is that consensus that departs
from our own beliefs introduces uncertainty, particularly the suspicion that
the consensus ‘‘reflect[s] information that they have and we do not’’
(Banerjee, 1992, p. 798). Conformity can then be viewed as a rational
decision under conditions of uncertainty. This is particularly relevant when
conformity is modeled as informational cascades (Bikhchandani,
Hirschleifer, & Welch, 1992). In cascade models the first person is assumed
to have private information while each subsequent person is assumed to
have private information plus information about others’ decisions. If the
first two people agree, then the third concludes that they share the same
private information. If that information concurs with their own, the cascade
continues on to the next person, and so on. If two consecutive people
disagree, however, then this signals that they have different private
information. Each person can be thought of as equally weighting their
own and other people’s judgments. Group consensus that departs from
one’s own judgment therefore holds sway.

These analyses indicate that conformity can indeed be the outcome of a
rational process. But they also just as clearly indicate that rationality and
morality are separate, incommensurate criteria. One cannot be reduced to or
explained in terms of the other.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

This research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial
relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Manuscript received 14 June 2012

Manuscript accepted 3 September 2012

First published online 4 October 2012

MORALITY AND CONFORMITY 277

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MORALITY AND CONFORMITY 279

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp

T

he strategic moral self: Self-presentation shapes moral dilemma judgments

Sarah C. Roma,⁎, Paul Conwayb

a Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Germany
b Florida State University, Department of Psychology, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:
Moral dilemmas
Social judgment
Social perception
Self-perception
Meta-perception

A B S T R A C T

Research has focused on the cognitive and affective processes underpinning dilemma judgments where causing
harm maximizes outcomes. Yet, recent work indicates that lay perceivers infer the processes behind others’
judgments, raising two new questions: whether decision-makers accurately anticipate the inferences perceivers
draw from their judgments (i.e., meta-insight), and, whether decision-makers strategically modify judgments to
present themselves favorably. Across seven studies, a) people correctly anticipated how their dilemma judg-
ments would influence perceivers’ ratings of their warmth and competence, though self-ratings differed (Studies
1–3), b) people strategically shifted public (but not private) dilemma judgments to present themselves as warm
or competent depending on which traits the situation favored (Studies 4–6), and, c) self-presentation strategies
augmented perceptions of the weaker trait implied by their judgment (Study 7). These results suggest that moral
dilemma judgments arise out of more than just basic cognitive and affective processes; complex social con-
siderations causally contribute to dilemma decision-making.

During the Second World War, Alan Turing and his team cracked the
Enigma Code encrypting German war communications. Soon, British High
Command discovered an impending attack on Coventry—but taking
countermeasures would reveal the decryption (Winterbotham, 1974).
Thus, they faced a moral dilemma: allow the deadly raid to proceed and
continue intercepting German communications, or deploy lifesaving
countermeasures and blind themselves to future attack. Ultimately, the
Allies allowed the attack to proceed. Lives were lost, but some analysts
suggest this decision expedited the war’s conclusion (Copeland, 2014). The
moral judgment literature suggests that such decisions reflect a tension
between basic affective processes rejecting harm and cognitive evaluations
of outcomes allowing harm (Green, Nystrom, Engell, Darley, & Cohen,
2004). But is it possible that self-presentation also factored in? The British
High Command may have considered how their allies would react upon
learning they threw away a tool for victory to prevent one deadly, but
relatively modest, raid.

Moral dilemmas typically entail considering whether to accept harm
to prevent even greater catastrophe. Philosophers originally developed
such dilemmas to illustrate a distinction between killing someone as the
means of saving others versus as a side effect of doing so (Foot, 1967),
but subsequent theorists have largely described them as illustrating a

conflict between deontological and utilitarian philosophy (e.g., Greene,
Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001). The dual process model
suggests that affective reactions to harm underlie decisions to reject
harm, whereas cognitive evaluations of outcomes underlie decisions to
accept harm to maximize outcomes (Greene et al., 2004). Other the-
orists have described these as processes in terms of basic cognitive ar-
chitecture for decision-making (Crockett, 2013; Cushman, 2013), or
heuristic adherence to moral rules (Sunstein, 2005). Notably, all such
existing models focus on relatively basic, non-social processing.

Yet, Haidt (2001) argued that moral judgments are intrinsically
social, and communicate important information about the speaker. In-
deed, recent work indicates that lay perceivers view decision-makers
who reject harm (upholding deontology) as warmer, more moral, more
trustworthy, more empathic, and more emotional than decision-makers
who accept harm (upholding utilitarianism), whom perceivers view as
more competent and logical, with consequences for hiring decisions
(Everett, Pizarro, & Crockett, 2016; Kreps & Monin, 2014; Rom,
Weiss, & Conway, 2016; Uhlmann, Zhu, and Tannenbaum, 2013).

1

Moreover, social pressure can influence dilemma judgments (Bostyn &
Roets, 2016; Kundu & Cummins, 2012; Lucas & Livingstone, 2014).
Such findings raise the question of whether people have meta-insight

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.00

3

Received 4 April 2017; Received in revised form 8 August 2017; Accepted 17 August 2017

⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Richard-Strauss-Str. 2, 509

31

, Cologne, Germany.
E-mail addresses: sarah.rom@uni-koeln.de (S.C. Rom), conway@psy.fsu.edu (P. Conway).

1 Deontological dilemma judgments appear to convey both warmth and morality (Rom et al., 2016). Although these constructs can be disentangled (e.g., Brambilla et al., 2011), in the
present context they happen to covary substantially. It may be that different aspects of deontological decisions influence these perceptions (e.g., whether they accord with moral rules;
whether they suggest emotional processing), but these aspects overlap in the current paradigm. We focus primarily on perceptions of warmth, which roughly corresponds to the affective
processing postulated by the dual process model, and relegated findings regarding morality the supplement. Future work should disentangle warmth trait perceptions from moral
character evaluations.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–

37

Available online

30

August 2017
0022-1031/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

T

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00221031

https://www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.003

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.003

mailto:sarah.rom@uni-koeln.de

mailto:conway@psy.fsu.edu

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.003

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.003&domain=pdf

into how their dilemma judgments make them appear in the eyes of
others, and whether decision-makers strategically adjust dilemma
judgments to create desired social impressions. If so, this would provide
the first evidence to our knowledge that higher-order processes causally
influence judgments, suggesting dilemma decisions do not merely re-
flect the operation of basic affective and cognitive processes.

1. Moral dilemma judgments: basic vs. social processes

Moral dilemmas originated as philosophical thought experiments,
including the famous trolley dilemma where decision-makers could
redirect a runaway trolley so it kills one person instead of five (Foot,
1967). According to Greene et al. (2001), refusing to cause harm to save
others qualifies as a ‘characteristically deontological’ decision, because
in deontological ethics the morality of action primarily hinges on its
intrinsic nature (Kant, 1785/1959). Conversely, causing harm by re-
directing the trolley saves five people, thereby qualifying as a ‘char-
acteristically utilitarian’ decision, because in utilitarian ethics the
morality of an action primarily hinges on its outcomes (Mill, 1861/
1998).2 Note that utilitarian philosophy technically entails impartial
maximization of the greater good, which represents a subset of the
broader concept of consequentialism, which advocates for outcome-
focused decision-making more generally. We do not wish to imply that
making a judgment consistent with utilitarianism renders one a utili-
tarian—it need not (e.g., Kahane, 2015)—but rather we use the term
‘utilitarian’ in the simpler senses that such judgments a) objectively
maximize overall outcomes, b) appear to often entail ordinary cost-
benefit reasoning, and c) utilitarian/consequentialist philosophers
generally approve of such judgments (see Amit & Greene, 2012).

Although dilemmas originated in philosophy, research in psy-
chology, neuroscience, and experimental philosophy has aimed to
clarify the psychological mechanisms driving dilemma judgments. Most
prominent among these is the dual process model, which postulates that
basic affective and cognitive processes drive dilemma judgments
(Greene et al., 2001). Other theorists have argued judgments reflect
decision-making systems focused on immediate action versus long-
range goals (Crockett, 2013; Cushman, 2013), heuristic adherence to
moral rules (Sunstein, 2005), or the application of innate moral
grammar (Mikhail, 2007a, 2007b). We do not aim to adjudicate be-
tween these various claims, nor do we dispute the contribution of such
processes. Rather, we simply note that these models focus on basic,
nonsocial processes.

Research has largely ignored the possibility that higher-order sophis-
ticated social processes might causally contribute to dilemma judgments.
Yet, morality appears intrinsically social (Haidt, 2001), and most real-
world moral judgments involve publicly communicating with others (e.g.,
Hofmann, Wisneski, Brandt, & Skitka, 2014). We expect the same is true of
dilemma judgments. Although the best-known dilemmas are hypothetical
(such as the trolley dilemma), many real-world decisions entail causing
harm to improve overall outcomes (e.g., launching airstrikes in Syria to
prevent ISIS from gaining momentum, punishing naughty children to
improve future behavior, imposing fines to prevent speeding). As decisions
in such cases align with either deontological or utilitarian ethical positions,
they correspond to real world moral dilemmas. Moreover, lay decision-
makers employ verbal arguments that align with deontological and

utilitarian ethical positions (Kreps & Monin, 2014). Hence, social con-
sideration of dilemma judgments is not restricted to responses to hy-
pothetical scenarios, but forms an ordinary part of communication about
common moral situations.

Kreps and Monin (2014) examined deontological and utilitarian
arguments in speeches by Presidents Clinton and Bush, among other
politicians. Lay perceivers viewed speakers as moralizing more when
they framed arguments in terms of deontology rather than utilitar-
ianism. These findings align with work on hypothetical dilemma deci-
sions: perceivers rated and treated decision-makers who rejected harm
(upholding deontology) as more trustworthy than decision-makers who
accept harm (upholding utilitarianism, Everett et al., 2016), as well as
more moral, more empathic, and less pragmatic than harm-accepting
decision-makers (Uhlmann et al., 2013). Likewise, Rom et al. (2016)
found that lay people appear to intuit the dual process model: they
rated targets who rejected harm as relatively warm, and inferred that
such judgments were driven by emotion. Conversely, perceivers rated
targets who accepted harm as relatively competent, and inferred that
such judgments were driven by cognitive deliberation.3 Moreover,
perceivers preferred harm-rejecting decision-makers for social roles
prioritizing warmth, such as social partners or their child’s doctor, but
preferred harm-accepting decision-makers for roles prioritizing com-
petence, such as hospital administration (Everett et al., 2016; Rom
et al., 2016). Hence, decision-makers face a warmth/competence tra-
deoff when presenting their decision to others. The current work ex-
amines whether decision-makers are aware of this trade-off, and whe-
ther they strategically adjust their decisions to present themselves
favorably.

2. Meta-perceptions regarding dilemma judgments

We propose that lay perceivers hold fairly accurate meta-perceptions
into how others will view them based on their dilemma decision. People
care deeply about their moral reputation (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Everett
et al., 2016; Krebs, 2011) and the moral reputations of others (Brambilla,
Rusconi, Sacchi, & Cherubini, 2011; Goodwin, Piazza, & Rozin, 2014).
Clearly, the research described above on perceptions of decision-makers
indicate that dilemma decisions can affect moral reputation, suggesting
that people should be attuned to what messages their judgments convey.
Moreover, past work suggests that people can be reasonably accurate
when gauging how others perceive them. For example, narcissists appear
aware that others view them less positively than they view themselves
(Carlson & Furr, 2009; Carlson, Vazire, & Furr, 2011). Self- and social-rat-
ings particularly converge when the underlying traits entail public beha-
viors (e.g., loquaciousness signals extraversion) rather than inner states
(e.g., neurotic feelings, Vazire, 2010). Sharing one’s dilemma judgment
entails a clear public behavior, suggesting relative accuracy in meta-per-
ceptions.

2 Following Greene et al. (2001), we use the term ‘characteristically’ deontological/
utilitarian, because there are many variants of each theory that do not all agree. None-
theless, this terminology is widely employed currently, and so we follow in this termi-
nological tradition despite its limitations. Note that we are not arguing that making a
given dilemma decision implies that decision-makers ascribe to abstract philosophical
commitments. Rather, we argue simply that ‘utilitarian’ judgments qualify as such be-
cause they tend to maximize outcomes, regardless of decision-makers’ philosophical
commitments. Just as one need not be Italian to cook an Italian meal, accepting outcome-
maximizing harm on a dilemma does not make one a utilitarian. Hence, these terms
reflect only to the content of judgments, rather than the qualities of judges (see
Amit & Greene, 2012).

3 If the dual-process model is correct, responses to classic moral dilemmas do not reflect
the degree to which decision-makers experience affective reactions or engage in cognition
in an absolute sense. If classic moral dilemmas place affect and cognition in conflict, and
ultimately judges may only choose one option, then judgments reflect the relative strength
of each process. For example, accepting harm that maximizes outcomes may occur either
due to strong cognition coupled with strong but slightly weaker affect, or weak cognition
coupled with weaker affect. Hence, a judgment to accept causing harm does not reveal
whether the judge experienced strong or weak affect—only that cognition outweighed
whatever degree of affect they experienced. Nor does such a judgment guarantee that the
judge engaged in strong cognition—only that whatever cognition they engaged in out-
weighed their affective experience. Some people may engage in extensive affect and
cognition, whereas others engage in little of either. In order to estimate each processes
independently, it is necessary to use a technique such as process dissociation (see
Conway & Gawronski, 2013). However, in the current work we are not interested in the
actual processes underlying dilemma judgments so much as lay perceptions of these
processes. To that end, lay people, like many researchers, equate harm avoidance judg-
ments with strong affect and harm acceptance judgments with strong cognition. This
intuition is effective as a rough heuristic, so long as researchers recognize that it does not
accurately describe moral dilemma processing.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37

25

However, other research casts doubt on the possibility of accurate
dilemma meta-perceptions in dilemma research. Besides public expression,
dilemma judgments entail intrapsychic aspects such as emotional reac-
tions, perceptions of conflict, and so on (e.g., Andersen & Ross, 1984;
Kruger & Gilovich, 2004; Pronin, 2008; Winkielman & Schwarz, 2001).
Decision-makers hold privileged knowledge of their experience of these
inner states. People often fail to consider that others have access to less
information than they do (Chambers, Epley, Savitsky, & Windschitl, 2008).
Whereas egocentric perspectives come to mind easily, adjusting away from
egocentricity is difficult (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, & Gilovich, 2004).
Thus, meta-perceptions are often biased by self-understanding (Chambers
et al., 2008; Kaplan, Santuzzi, & Ruscher, 2009; Kenny & DePaulo, 1993).
Moreover, people are motivated to view themselves positively in the moral
domain (Epley & Dunning, 2000) much like non-moral domains (e.g.,
Dunning & McElwee, 1995), and can rationalize either dilemma decision
in self-flattering ways (Uhlmann, Pizarro, Tannenbaum, & Ditto, 2009;
Liu & Ditto, 2013). Thus, people may well judge themselves as high in both
warmth and competence regardless of their dilemma decision—and may
expect others to agree with this flattering self-assessment.

If decision-makers erroneously base meta-perceptions on self-per-
ceptions, meta-perception ratings should converge with self-ratings and
diverge from ratings of others following the same judgment—that is,
people may believe they come across as both warm and competent
regardless of their dilemma decision, whereas they view others’ deci-
sions as reflecting a warmth/competence trade-off. Conversely, if
people have accurate meta-insight into how others perceive them,
meta-perception ratings should converge with other ratings and diverge
from self-ratings—that is, people may privately believe they are warm
and competent regardless of dilemma decision, yet expect others to rate
them according to the same warmth/competence tradeoff implied by
others’ judgments. We contrasted these predictions empirically.

3. Strategic self-presentation in dilemma judgments

If people evince accurate meta-insight into what their dilemma deci-
sion conveys, this raises the possibility that they strategically adjust such
decisions to present themselves favorably. There are potential upsides and
downsides to selecting each dilemma judgment, as the precise cause of
others’ dilemma decisions appear ambiguous. Upholding utilitarianism by
accepting outcome-maximizing harm amounts to bloodying one’s hands
for the sake of the community. Such bold and brutal action may convey
either competent leadership (Lucas & Galinsky, 2015) or a callous dis-
regard for causing harm—as in psychopathy (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011) or
low empathy (Gleichgerrcht & Young, 2013). Conversely, rejecting harm
(upholding deontology) may convey either a warm concern for others
and/or principled respect for life and/or trustworthiness (Everett et al.,
2016; Kreps & Monin, 2014; Rom et al., 2016), or suggest incompetent
paralysis when the situation demands bold action (Gawronski, Conway,
Armstrong, Friesdorf, & Hütter, 2015; Gold, Pulford, & Colman, 2015).
Hence, in some circumstances it may be preferable to risk appearing in-
competent in order to convey warmth, trustworthiness, and respect for
life; in other situations, it may be preferable to risk appearing cold and
callous in order to convey decisive competence and leadership.

People care deeply about presenting themselves favorably. They
tailor their public images in various domains to the perceived values
and preferences of important others (Leary, 1995; Leary & Kowalski,
1990; Reis & Gruzen, 1976; von Baeyer, Sherk, & Zanna, 1981). People
change social roles over time, and social roles carry expectations re-
garding how individuals who occupy those roles ought to behave
(Sarbin & Allen, 1968). Hence, people often flexibly present themselves
to conform to different social role expectations (Leary, 1989; Leary,
Robertson, Barnes, & Miller, 1986). Indeed, Everett et al. (2016) argued
that deontological dilemma judgments may operate as a reputation-
management mechanism to present oneself as a trustworthy social in-
teraction partner by demonstrating respect for others autonomy and
wishes (see also Bostyn & Roets, 2016).

Accordingly, previous work demonstrates that social situations influ-
ence dilemma responses. In a modification of the Asch conformity para-
digm, Kundu and Cummins (2012) asked participants whether they would
accept or reject outcome-maximizing harm after a series of confederates
gave a particular answer. They found evidence for conformity pressure:
participants were more likely to give answers consistent with those of the
confederates. Bostyn and Roets (2016) conducted a similar study, and
argued that conformity pressure was stronger for harm rejection (up-
holding deontology) than harm acceptance (upholding utilitarianism).
However, Lucas and Livingstone (2014) found that participants who so-
cially connected with others before completing dilemmas after were more
willing to accept harm (upholding utilitarianism). It may be that resolving
dilemmas in front of strangers motivated participants to skew towards
deontological answers so as to avoid appearing immoral—after all, re-
search suggests that moral traits appear especially important when
forming first impressions (Brambilla et al., 2011; Goodwin et al., 2014),
and that warmth may also be important when forming first impressions
(Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2006). Conversely, when participants have an op-
portunity to establish warmth or morality through social interactions, they
may have felt free to demonstrate other qualities, such as competence.
These findings suggest that context may shift whether accepting or re-
jecting harm seems to be the optimal answer. If participants strategically
adjust dilemma judgments, their perception of expectations should vary
depending on whether the circumstances appear to prioritize warmth over
competence, and their public (but not private) dilemma answers should
track such expectations.

4. Overview

Across seven studies, we investigated whether people hold accurate
meta-perceptions regarding how others view them based on their di-
lemma judgments, and whether they strategically modify such judg-
ments to present themselves favorably. First, we examined whether
people have accurate meta-insight into the warmth and competence
ratings others infer from their dilemma judgments by comparing
warmth and competence ratings of others, the self, and meta-percep-
tions of the self (Studies 1–3). Second, we tested whether people shift
public (but not private) dilemma judgments depending on whether
warmth or competence is favored in a given situation (Studies 4–6).
Third, we investigated whether people can use communication strate-
gies to offset the weaker trait implied by their judgment—whether
people who accept harm can come across as warm, and people who
reject harm can come across as competent (Study 7). Across all studies,
we disclose all measures, manipulations, and exclusions, as well as the
method of determining the final sample size. In none of the studies data
collection was continued after data analysis.

5. Study 1

Study 1 examined the accuracy of participants’ meta-perceptions
(i.e., meta-accuracy, Anderson, Ames, & Gosling, 2008) following moral
dilemma judgments. We randomly assigned participants to one of three
conditions: participants either made a dilemma judgment themselves
(self and meta-perception condition) or read about another persons’
dilemma judgment (other condition). Then, participants in the self-
condition rated their own warmth and competence, those in the other
condition rated the others’ warmth and competence, and those in the
meta-perception condition rated how they believed others would view
their warmth and competence. Hence, the design was a 3 (target: self
vs. other vs. meta-perceptions) × 2 (decision: harm rejection vs. ac-
ceptance) × 2 (personality dimension: warmth vs. competence) quasi-
experimental design (as participants were free to make either dilemma
judgment themselves) with the first two factors between-subjects and
the third within-subjects.

Given that people tend to view themselves positively in the moral
domain (Epley & Dunning, 2000), and have access to internal

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37

26

perceptions of conflict between response options, we expected partici-
pants in the self-condition would rate themselves high on both warmth
and competence, regardless of their dilemma decision. We expected
participants in the other condition to replicate the patterns demon-
strated by Rom et al. (2016): they should rate targets who rejected
causing harm as warmer but less competent than targets who accepted
causing outcome-maximizing harm. Most importantly, we predicted
that participants’ meta-perception condition would exhibit meta-accu-
racy, by anticipating that others would rate them using the same
warmth/competence tradeoff (depending on dilemma decision) as
participants in the other condition, rather than the uniformly high
warmth and competence ratings participants privately make about
themselves.

5.1. Method

5.1.1. Participants
We recruited 200 American participants (1

34

males, 66 females,

Mage = 30.63, SD = 8.92) via Mechanical Turk, who received $0.25,
aiming for ~50 per between-subjects condition, although actual responses
varied substantially (nself_harm_rejection = 14; nself_harm_acceptance = 30;
nother_harm_rejection = 54; nother_harm_acceptance = 46; nmeta_harm_rejection = 14;
nmeta_harm_acceptance = 42). First, we randomly assigned participants to ei-
ther learn about Brad’s ostensible judgment or to make a judgment
themselves. Next, we randomly assigned half of participants in the self-
dilemma-judgment condition to rate themselves on warmth and compe-
tence, and half to rate themselves as they expected others would (meta-
perceptions).4 We excluded no one. Although we did not conduct a priori
power analyses, we felt confident that this design provided reasonable
power based on past work (Rom et al., 2016). Indeed, a post hoc power
analysis using GPower (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) for a
fixed-effects between-within design where ηp

2 = .10, N = 200, α = .05,
and the correlation between repeated measures was r = .

33

suggested that
we had ~99% power to detect the obtained interaction.

5.1.2. Procedure
All participants read the widely-employed crying baby dilemma

(e.g., Conway & Gawronski, 2013), where the actor must decide whe-
ther to smother a baby to prevent its cries from alerting murderous
soldiers hunting for other townspeople in hiding. Participants in the self
and meta-perception conditions then selected either yes, this action is
appropriate or no, this action is not appropriate (following Greene
et al., 2001). Participants in the other condition viewed a photo of a
university student named Brad, then learned that Brad had selected
either one or the other of these responses (following Rom et al., 2016).
Then, participants completed measures of warmth and competence
using items adapted from Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu (2002).

Depending on condition, participants either rated themselves, Brad,
or indicated how they thought others would rate them following their
decision (meta-perception). Specifically, those in the meta-perception
condition read:

Now take a moment to imagine that another person saw the judgment
you made.

Based on that information, what would they think about you? From
their perspective how well do you think they would say each trait
describes you? THEY would think you are…

Participants indicated how well four warmth traits (warm, good-
natured, tolerant, sincere) and five competence traits (competent, con-
fident, independent, competitive, intelligent) described the target on 7-
point scales anchored at 1 (not at all) and 7 (very much). We averaged
judgments into composites of warmth (α = .91) and competence

(α = .87), which were modestly correlated (r = .33). Item order was
randomized for each participant. For exploratory reasons, we also in-
cluded the single item moral, consistent with Rom et al. (2016).

Some researchers have argued that morality and warmth are dis-
tinguishable constructs (Brambilla et al., 2011; Goodwin et al., 2014).
We find these arguments persuasive—used car salesmen that evince
warm sociability should not be trusted, whereas a cold and dis-
passionate judge who sentences criminals may nonetheless appear
moral. Nonetheless, it may be that these constructs align more in some
contexts than others. Hence, we empirically examined how well these
constructs dissociated in the current studies using five strategies.

First, we noted that the item moral consistently correlated highly
with the warmth composite measure, ~r = .75, consistent with Rom
et al. (2016). Second, we noted that the item moral varied across con-
ditions in the same manner as the warmth composite on all studies (see
Supplementary analysis). Now, it remains possible that these findings
simply reflect the fact that some items in the warmth composite—such
as sincerity—assess perceptions morality instead of warmth. Therefore,
third, we conducted factor analyses (principle axis factoring with ob-
limin rotation) for all studies assessing warmth and morality (see Table
S1 in supplementary material). In each case, all warmth items loaded
together with the item moral onto a single factor, whereas all compe-
tence items loaded onto a separate factor. A couple of items occasion-
ally loaded well on both factors—confident, tolerant, competent, and in-
telligent—but these dual loadings each occurred only once, and did not
replicate across the other studies. Fourth, we conducted follow-up
analyses for each study using only the single items warmth and com-
petent instead of the composite measures; findings were very similar
(find an example for Study 1 in the supplementary material). Fifth, we
conducted follow-up analyses for each study using an alternative
warmth score based on two items (warm, good-natured), and an alter-
native morality score based on three items (sincere, tolerant, morality),

5

as well as a combined warmth/morality score including all warmth
items plus the item morality. In each case, the pattern of findings re-
mained very similar to the patterns presented below.

These findings suggest that in the context of dilemma perceptions,
participants may find it difficult to disentangle warmth and morality.
After all, perceivers may find it ambiguous whether a given deontolo-
gical judgment reflects affective processing or adherence to moral rules.
Alternatively, it may be that the particular items presented in this scale
underestimate the difference between these constructs. Either way, the
current paradigm was not designed to distinguish between warmth and
morality. Indeed, these analyses suggest it may even be warranted to
include the item moral in the warmth composite measure. Nonetheless,
in recognition of the important theoretical distinction between warmth
and morality (Brambilla et al., 2011; Goodwin et al., 2014) and to re-
main consistent with Rom et al. (2016), we decided to treat the item
morality as a separate construct. Given that the current focus was on
contrasting perceptions of warmth and competence, and the similarity
between the patterns of warmth and morality, we decided to relegate
the morality findings to the supplementary material.

5.1.3. Results
We submitted ratings to a 3 (target: self vs. other vs. meta-percep-

tions) × 2 (decision: harm rejection vs. acceptance) × 2 (personality
dimension: warmth vs. competence) repeated measures ANOVA with
the first two factors between and the last factor within subjects (see
Fig. 1). We conducted Levene’s tests to examine homogeneity of var-
iance assumptions. This assumption was not violated for warmth, F
(5194) = 1.88, p = .100, but was violated for competence, F(5194)
= 3.15, p = .009. Therefore, to supplement the main analysis in the
text, we also conducted non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-
Whitney tests (see Supplement), which are more robust to violations of

4 We acknowledge that this two-stage random assignment is suboptimal because it led
to uneven cell sizes, which is one reason we increased the sample size in Study 2. 5 We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37

27

homogeneity of variance (Tomarken & Serlin, 1986; Kruskal & Wallis,
1952; Mann & Whitney, 1947). The results of these tests largely corro-
borated the conclusions of the main analyses presented here.

There was a main effect of target: participants gave higher ratings
overall in the self (M = 5.18, SD = 1.12) than other (M = 4.64,
SD = .90), or meta-perception conditions (M = 4.

28

, SD = 1.04), F(2,
194) = 8.47, p < .001, ηp

2 = .08. There was also a main effect of
decision: participants rated targets who rejected harm, upholding
deontology, higher overall (M = 4.86, SD = 1.10), than targets who
accepted harm, upholding utilitarianism (M = 4.51, SD = 1.03), F(2,
194) = 8.

32

, p = .004, ηp

2 = .04. There was no main effect of per-
sonality dimension, F(2, 194) = 1.75, p = .18, ηp

2 = .01. These main
effects were qualified by a significant two-way interaction between
target decision and personality measure, F(1, 194) = 45.65, p < .001, ηp

2 = .19, and a marginal interaction between target and personality
measure, F(2, 194) = 3.03, p = .050, ηp

2 = .03, 95%, whereas the in-
teraction between target and decision was not significant, F(2, 194)
= 1.55, p = .214, ηp

2 = .02. Moreover, the three-way interaction was
significant, F(2, 194) = 11.14, p < .001, ηp

2 = .10.
We decomposed these interactions by examining post-hoc tests

within each condition. As predicted, participants in the self-condition
rated themselves equally high on warmth when they rejected
(M = 5.69, SD = 1.24) or accepted (M = 5.12, SD = 1.40) causing
harm, F(1194) = 2.70, p = .102, ηp

2 = .01, and equally competent
when they rejected (M = 5.50, SD = 1.17) versus accepted causing
harm (M = 4.85, SD = 1.94), F(1194) = 3.60, p = .059, ηp

2 = .03.

However, participants in the other-condition replicated the predicted
warmth/competence tradeoff found previously: Participants rated Brad
higher on warmth when he rejected (M = 5.00, SD = 1.19), than when
he accepted causing outcome-maximizing harm (M = 4.03, SD = .99),
F(1, 194) = 15.57, p < .001, ηp

2 = .07. Conversely, they rated Brad
as higher in competence when he accepted (M = 5.16, SD = 1.16),
rather than rejected causing outcome-maximizing harm (M = 3.

36

,
SD = 1.31), F(1, 194) = 11.67, p < .001, ηp

2 = .06.
Crucially, participants in the meta-perception-condition evinced the

same warmth/competence tradeoff as participants in the other-condi-
tion: When participants rejected harm they inferred others would per-
ceive them as warmer (M = 5.16, SD = 1.59) than when they accepted
causing outcome-maximizing harm (M = 3.36, SD = 1.31), F(1, 194)
= 22.95, p < .001, ηp

2 = .10. In contrast, when they accepted such
harm, they inferred that others would perceive them as equally com-
petent (M = 4.89, SD = 1.10) than when they rejected such harm
(M = 4.38, SD = 1.46), F(1, 194) = 2.32, p = .1

29

, ηp

2 = .01.

5.1.4. Discussion
These findings suggest that participants have accurate meta-insight

regarding the inferences others will draw about their personality from
their dilemma judgments. Privately, participants rated themselves
equally high on warmth and competence regardless of their dilemma
decision. However, in the meta-perception condition they expected
others to rate them similar to how they rated others: just as participants
viewed targets who rejected causing harm as warmer and less compe-
tent than targets who accepted causing harm, they expected that others
would rate them as warmer (though not significantly less competent)
when they rejected vs. accepted causing harm themselves. To our
knowledge, this is the first evidence that participants are aware of the
impression their dilemma judgments convey to others.

However, our quasi-experimental design suffered from the limita-
tion of nonrandom assignment: participants in the self and meta-per-
ception conditions freely choose which dilemma decision to make.
Hence, it remains possible that our meta-perception results reflect the
general psychology of people who made a specific decision, rather than
inferences regarding that decision per se. Even though this interpreta-
tion seems unlikely give the null effect in the private self-rating con-
dition, we aimed to resolve this confound in Study 2.

6. Study

2

Study 2 replicated the meta-perception condition from Study 1,
together with a communication error condition where participants ima-
gined that others erroneously learned they made the dilemma judgment
opposite to the one they truly made. This design allowed us to test
whether meta-perceptions in Study 1 would hold for decisions that
participants personally disagreed with. We expected that warmth and
competence meta-perceptions would track the decision others believed
participants made (harm rejection: higher warmth than competence,
harm acceptance: higher competence than warmth), rather than the
decision participants actually made.

6.1. Method

6.1.1. Participants
To increase confidence in the effects and address the uneven cell

sizes in Study 1, we decided to approximately double the sample size
and employ more traditional randomization procedures. We recruited
397 American participants via Mechanical Turk, who received $0.25.
We excluded 24 participants who completed less than 50% of depen-
dent measures, leaving a final sample of 373 (244 males, 123 females,

6

unreported, Mage = 30.49, SD = 9.89. Participants were randomly as-
signed to the correct versus error condition, though of course they se-
lected which dilemma judgment to make in this quasi-experimental
design (ncorrect_harm_rejection = 32; ncorrect_harm_acceptance = 157;

3

4

5
6

Self Other Meta Self Other Meta

W

a
rm

th
a

n
d
C

o
m

p
e
te

n
ce

R
a
tin

g
s

Warmth Competence

Harm rejection Harm acceptance

Fig. 1. Participants’ self, target, and meta-perception warmth
and competence ratings when they or the target rejected
causing harm to maximize outcomes (upholding deontology),
or accepted such harm (upholding utilitarianism), Study 1.
Error bars reflect standard errors.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
28

nerror_harm_rejection = 45; nerror_harm_acceptance = 139). In both conditions,
many more people accepted than rejected harm, but due to the com-
munication error these ratios appear to flip. A Levene’s test of equality
of error variances revealed that this time, the homogeneity of variance
assumption was violated neither for warmth, F (3369) = 2.50,
p = .059, nor for competence, F(3369) = 1.31, p = .271. GPower
suggested we had ~99% post-hoc power to detect the obtained inter-
action with this sample size.

6.1.2. Procedure
Each participant read the crying baby dilemma from Study 1, and

selected one of the two dilemma responses. Then we randomly assigned
them to the correct communication or communication error condition.
Participants in the correct communication condition imagined that
others correctly learned which dilemma decision they made, as in Study
1. Participants in the communication error condition imagined that
others erroneously learned they made the dilemma decision opposite to
their real decision. Specifically, participants read:

Now take a moment to imagine that another person learned about
the judgment you made. As often happens, misinformation got out
and this other person thinks you chose: Yes, harm is appropriate [No
harm is not appropriate]. Based on the information that you would
[not] SMOTHER the baby, what would this person think of you?
From their perspective how well do you think they would say each
trait describes you? THEY would think you are…

Participants indicated how they believed others would perceive
them on the same warmth (α = .89), competence (α = .87), and
morality items as Study 1. This resulted in a 2 (communication: correct
vs. error) × 2 (decision: harm rejection vs. acceptance) × 2 (dimen-
sion: warmth vs. competence) quasi-experimental design, as partici-
pants could not be randomly assigned to make a particular judgment.
Consistent with Study 1 and past work (Rom et al., 2016), warmth and
competence correlated moderately (r = .40), whereas morality corre-
lated highly with warmth (r = .87) and less with competence (r = .38).
Morality yielded results similar to warmth across condition (replicating
previous work, Rom et al., 2016) but was not focus of the current
manuscript, so we again relegated it to the supplement.

6.1.3. Results
We submitted warmth and competence ratings to a 2 (commu-

nication: correct vs. error) × 2 (decision: harm rejection vs. accep-
tance) × 2 (dimension: warmth vs. competence) repeated measures
ANOVA (see Fig. 2) with the first two factors between-subjects and the
last factor within-subjects. There was a main effect of communication:
participants gave higher personality ratings overall in the correct
communication (M = 4.25, SD = 1.26) than communication error
condition (M = 3.98, SD = 1.

35

), F(1, 369) = 17.51, p < .001, ηp

2 = .05. There was no main effect of decision, F(1, 369) = 0.46,
p = .499, ηp

2 = .001, but there was a main effect of personality di-
mension: participants gave lower warmth (M = 3.89, SD = 1.81) than
competence ratings overall (M = 4.35, SD = 1.47), F(1, 369) = 7.30,
p = .007, ηp

2 = .02. In addition, there were significant 2-way interac-
tions between communication and personality dimension, F(1, 369)
= 19.26, p < .001, ηp

2 = .05, and between decision and personality
dimension, F(1, 369) = 4.43, p = .036, ηp

2 = .01, though not between
communication and personality dimension, F(1, 369) = 2.25,
p = .134, ηp

2 = .01. More importantly, we obtained the expected
three-way interaction, F(1, 369) = 49.02, p < .001, ηp

2 = .12.
Post-hoc contrasts largely replicated Study 1 in the correct com-

munication condition: Participants expected that others would rate
them as warmer when they rejected harm, upholding deontology
(M = 5.06, SD = 1.49) than accepted causing harm, upholding utili-
tarianism (M = 3.40, SD = 1.68), F(1, 182) = 19.70, p < .001, ηp

2 = .10. Results for competence trended in the expected direction,
but did not reach significance: participants expected that others would

rate them as similarly competent when they rejected (M = 4.51,
SD = 1.19), rather than accepted, causing harm (M = 4.82,
SD = 1.19), F(1, 187) = 1.91, p = .168, ηp

2 = .01. Participants in the
error communications condition showed the opposite pattern.
Participants expected that others would rate them as less warm when
they rejected (M = 2.94, SD = 1.93) rather than accepted causing
harm (M = 4.42, SD = 1.68), F(1, 369) = 22.28, p < .001, ηp

2 = .11.
Again, ratings for competence trended nonsignificantly in the expected
direction: participants expected others to rate them similarly on com-
petence when they rejected (M = 3.66, SD = 1.40), versus accepted
causing harm (M = 4.00, SD = 1.29), F(1, 369) = 2.25, p = .135,
ηp

2 = .01.

6.1.4. Discussion
Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1 in the correct com-

munication condition: participants who rejected harm (upholding
deontology) inferred that others would perceive them as relatively
warmer but (nonsignificantly) less competent, whereas participants
who accepted harm (upholding utilitarianism) inferred that others may
perceive them as (nonsignificantly) more competent but less warm.
Moreover, these meta-perception ratings flipped when participants
imagined that a communication error occurred, and others erroneously
believed they made the judgment opposite to the judgment they actu-
ally made. Hence, meta-perceptions tracked the information available
to others, rather than reflecting the judgments participants actually
made. This finding rules out the possibility that the Study 1 meta-per-
ception findings were driven by individual differences in meta-per-
ceptions among people who rejected versus accepted harm, thereby
overcoming the limitation of employing quasi-experimental designs.
However, thus far we have examined meta-perceptions using only the
crying baby dilemma in American MTurk samples. To improve gen-
eralizability, we examined whether these effects would replicate using a
whole battery of dilemmas and an in-lab sample of German-speaking
student participants.

7. Study 3

Study 3 examined whether the meta-perception findings in Studies 1
and 2 would generalize to other dilemmas and samples. Thus, we re-
cruited a laboratory sample of German-speaking university students
and broadened the stimulus set by translating a standardized battery of
10 dilemmas into German, and randomly presenting participants with
one of the ten dilemmas from this battery (Conway & Gawronski, 2013).

7.1. Method

7.1.1. Participants
We obtained 131 German university students (55 males, 75 females,

1 other, 2 no gender indication, Mage = 30.49, SD = 9.90) who re-
ceived $0.25. Again, we aimed for ~50 participants per cell, and ex-
cluded no one (nharm_rejection = 66; nharm_acceptance = 65). Again, we had
~99% power to detect the obtained interaction.

7.1.2. Procedure
The design was similar to the meta-perceptions condition in Study 1.

Each participant read one dilemma at random from a battery of 10
dilemmas, selected either accept or reject outcome-maximizing harm as
in Study 1, and completed the same meta-perception measures of how
others would view their warmth (α = .89) and competence (α = .87).
This time we did not measure morality. The battery consisted of all 10
incongruent dilemmas from Conway and Gawronski (2013), where
causing harm always maximized outcomes. The crying baby and vac-
cine dilemmas from Study 1 are examples of incongruent dilemmas
from this set. Other examples include the torture dilemma (is it appro-
priate to torture a man in order to stop a bomb that will kill people?),
and the car accident dilemma (is it appropriate to run over a

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
29

grandmother in order to avoid running over a mother and child?). This
design resulted in a 2 (decision: harm rejection vs. acceptance) × 2
(dimension: warmth vs. competence) quasi-experimental design. Again,
warmth and competence correlated moderately (r = .28).

7.1.3. Results
We submitted warmth and competence ratings to a 2 (decision:

harm rejection vs. acceptance) × 2 (dimension: warmth vs. compe-
tence) repeated measures ANOVA with the first factor between-subjects
and the second factor within-subjects. There was a main effect of target
decision: Participants who rejected harm, upholding deontology, re-
ported higher meta-perception ratings overall (M = 4.76, SD = 1.14),
than participants who accepted harm, upholding utilitarianism
(M = 4.16, SD = 1.26), F(1, 187) = 6.44, p = .012, ηp

2 = .03. There
was also main effect of personality dimension: participants reported
lower overall meta-perception ratings for warmth (M = 3.74,
SD = 1.76) than competence (M = 4.78, SD = 1.16), F(1, 187)
= 9.06, p = .003, ηp

2 = .05. More importantly, these results were
qualified by the predicted interaction, F(1, 187) = 42.58, p < .001, ηp

2 = .19.
Post-hoc tests revealed the same warmth/competence tradeoff as in

Studies 1 and 2: Participants expected that others would rate them as
warmer when they rejected (M = 5.02, SD = 1.49) rather than ac-
cepted causing harm (M = 3.48, SD = 1.71), F(1, 129) = 25.75,
p < .001, ηp

2 = .17. Conversely, participants expected that others
would rate them as less competent when they rejected (M = 4.51,
SD = 1.19) rather than accepted causing harm (M = 4.82, SD = 1.19),
F(1, 129) = 13.98, p < .001, ηp

2 = .01.

7.1.4. Discussion
Study 3 replicated and generalized the meta-perception findings

from Studies 1 and 2 to a different sample and broader array of di-
lemma stimuli. These findings increase confidence in the claim that
participants in both Germany and the United States hold accurate meta-
perceptions regarding how their judgments on many dilemmas make
them appear to others—namely, participants are aware of the warmth/
competence perception tradeoff implied by dilemma judgments. Next,
we turn to the possibility that people use this meta-perception in-
formation to adjust their dilemma decisions to strategically present
themselves as relatively warm or competent depending on which trait is
most valued in a given context.

8. Study 4

In Study 4, we examined whether people sometimes strategically

adjust their private dilemma judgments to mesh with social expecta-
tions. We randomly assigned participants to learn that the study was
ostensibly comparing either the intellectual or emotional abilities of
people in different university degree programs. Part of the study in-
volved responding to moral dilemmas. If people consider self-pre-
sentation when answering dilemmas, they should be more likely to
reject harm when they think the study assessed emotional competency
(i.e., warmth), and more likely to accept outcome-maximizing harm
when they think the study is about intellectual ability (i.e., compe-
tence).

8.1. Method

8.1.1. Participants
We obtained 120 German participants (57 males, 63 females,

Mage = 22.99, SD = 4.41) from a large University in Western Germany,
who received € 2.00. Participants were randomly assigned to a condi-
tion prioritizing logical reasoning (associated with competence) or
emotional competency (associated with warmth, Rom et al., 2016). We
again aimed to collect ~50 participants per cell, though we ended up
with a few extra people. No participants were excluded (nemotion = 60;
nlogic = 60). Again, Gpower suggested we had ~99% power to detect
the obtained interaction.

8.1.2. Procedure
To manipulate the perceived importance or warmth and compe-

tence, we randomly assigned participants to read the following in-
structions: This is a study to measure the logical reasoning ability (or
emotional competency) between people in different degree programs. Please
imagine the following situation and tell us your solution. Then we presented
them with three dilemmas, presented on individual screens, in a fixed
random order. We again employed the same ten dilemmas by randomly
presenting dilemmas from a standardized battery as in Study 3
(Conway & Gawronski, 2013). Participants indicated how much they
accepted vs. rejected such outcome-maximizing harm on scales from
harm is not acceptable (1) to harm is acceptable (7). We averaged ratings
to form an aggregate score of relative harm acceptability (α = .55).
Although this reliability is lower than ideal, it is to be expected for such
a wide range of content and few datapoints, and makes the analysis
more conservative.

8.1.3. Results and discussion
As predicted, participants indicated that causing harm to maximize

outcomes was relatively more appropriate in the condition emphasizing
logic (M = 4.74, SD = 1.50), versus emotional ability (M = 4.06,

1
2
3
4
5
6

Correct
Communication

Communication
Error

Correct
Communication
Communication
Error

W
a
rm

th
a
n
d
C
o
m
p
e
te
n
ce
R
a
tin
g
s Warmth Competence
Harm rejection Harm acceptance

Fig. 2. Warmth and competence meta-perceptions when parti-
cipants rejected outcome-maximizing harm (upholding deon-
tology), or accepted such harm (upholding utilitarianism), and
imagined others correctly learned their judgment (correct
communication condition) or erroneously believed they made
the opposite judgment (communication error condition), Study
2. Error bars reflect standard errors.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
30

SD = 1.45), t(118) = −2.53, p = .013, d = 1.70. This finding provides
initial evidence suggesting that participants may modify dilemma answers
to present themselves as relatively warm or competent, depending on
which trait is prioritized in the current context. However, it remains un-
clear whether this effect reflects strategic self-presentation or whether the
instructions simply primed participants to focus more on emotion or logic
when forming judgments (similar to Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006). There-
fore, in Study 5 we assessed not only which dilemma decision participants
report, but also which decision they believed others expected them to
make. If strategic self-presentation plays a role in dilemma judgments,
then both actual and expected decisions should reflect the influence of the
context manipulation. We also employed a new manipulation to increase
generalizability.

9. Study 5

In Study 5 we examined whether both expected and reported di-
lemma judgments conform to social role expectations. Participants
imagined they were applying for a job as a military physician, and one
interview question involved a moral dilemma. We manipulated whe-
ther warmth or competence was valued most by emphasizing either the
military (competence) or medical treatment (warmth) aspects of the
position. Then participants reported which dilemma answer they
thought interviewers expected, as well as their actual decision. If people
adjust their dilemma judgments to conform to social role expectations,
then participants in the military condition should be more likely to infer
and report accepting harm to cause outcome-maximizing harm than in
the physician condition.

9.1. Method

9.1.1. Participants and design
Again, to increase confidence in the findings of this conceptual re-

plication, we roughly doubled sample size to 200 American Mechanical
Turk participants (nmilitary = 100; nphysician = 100), who received $0.25
(128 males, 72 females, Mage = 33.23, SD = 10.89). This time, we
predicted a main effect rather than interaction; Gpower indicates this
design again provided ~99% power to detect the predicted main effect.
We randomly assigned participants to either the military or physician
emphasis conditions. No data were excluded.

9.1.2. Procedure
We asked participants to imagine they were interviewing for a job

they really wanted, and gave them one of two job descriptions adapted
from past work on masculine and feminine job descriptions
(Rudman & Glick, 1999). In the military condition participants read
(bold in original): As a military physician you will be responsible for the
health and well-being of personnel in your military unit. On the battlefield,
soldiers are in harm’s way. There will be casualties. The ideal military
doctor is technically skilled, ambitious, strongly independent, and able to
perform well under pressure. In the physician condition participants read:
As a military physician you will be responsible for the health and well-being
of personnel in your military unit. On the battlefield, soldiers are in harm’s
way. There will be casualties. The ideal military doctor is technically skilled
and able to work well under pressure, but also helpful, sensitive to the
needs of each individual patient, and able to listen carefully to their pa-
tients’ concerns.

Next, participants imagined they must answer a moral dilemma as
part of the interview process. We presented a version of the transplant
dilemma where a surgeon could allow one ill patient to die to use their
organs to save five other patients (Greene et al., 2001). Participants
reported their perception of interviewer expectations on two scales
from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much): How much does the interviewer want
you to say YES (NO); that withholding the medical care from Patient 6 in
order to save the other five patients is (NOT) appropriate?

We measured expectations twice using different framings in case
participants viewed these as independent questions. However, they
strongly negatively correlated (r = −.79), so we reverse-coded the
second question and combined them into a single measure reflecting
increased acceptance of outcome-maximizing harm. Finally, partici-
pants indicated their actual judgment on the same scale as Study 4.

9.1.3. Results
We conducted a 2 (condition: physician vs. military emphasis) × 2

(decision: expectation vs. answer) repeated measures ANOVA (see
Fig. 3) with the first factor between-subjects and second factor within-
subjects. This analysis yielded the expected main effect of condition:
participants gave higher harm acceptance ratings (upholding utilitar-
ianism/rejecting deontology) in the military (M = 4.10, SD = 2.33)
than physician emphasis condition (M = 3.09, SD = 1.80), F(1, 198)
= 11.63, p = .001, ηp

2 = .06. We also found an unexpected main effect
for decision: overall, participants reported lower harm acceptance rat-
ings for expectations (M = 3.41, SD = 2.03) than their real answers
(M = 3.80, SD = 2.62), F(1, 198) = 8.13, p = .005, ηp

2 = .04. The
emphasis condition × decision type interaction was not significant, F
(1, 198) = 1.07, p = .301, ηp

2 = .01. Post-hoc tests confirmed that
participants thought the interviewers expected them to accept harm
more in the military (M = 3.84, SD = 2.19) than physician emphasis
condition (M = 3.00, SD = 1.76), F(1, 198) = 9.49, p = .002,
ηp

2 = .05; likewise, participants were more likely to actually accept
harm in the military (M = 4.36, SD = 2.77) than physician emphasis
condition (M = 3.21, SD = 2.34), F(1, 198) = 10.01, p = .002,
ηp

2 = .05.

9.1.4. Discussion
When a military physician job description emphasized sensitive

caring, participants expected and indicated that causing harm to max-
imize outcomes was less acceptable to job interviews; when a descrip-
tion of the same job emphasized ambitious independent skill, partici-
pants expected and indicated that causing harm to maximize outcomes
was more acceptable to job interviews. These findings replicate Study 4
using a different manipulation, providing further support for the ar-
gument that participants modify dilemma judgments to present them-
selves favorably. However, it remains possible that features of the job
description simply primed participants to consider emotion or logic
more carefully when forming both expectation judgments and actual
dilemma judgments. In order to demonstrate strategic self-presentation,

1
2
3
4
5
6

Expected Answer Given Answer

A
cc

e
p
tin

g
o

u
tc

o
m

e
-m

a
xi

m
iz

in
g
h

a
rm

Physician Emphasis Military Emphasis

Fig. 3. Mean expected and actual dilemma decisions (accepting outcome-maximizing
harm, upholding utilitarianism) during military physician job interview emphasizing ei-
ther military or physician skills, Study 5. Error bars reflect standard errors.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
31

it is necessary to demonstrate that whereas participants’ public dilemma
decisions accord with expectations, their private decisions do not. We
examined this possibility in Study 6.

10. Study 6

Study 6 employed a similar design to Study 5, except for two
changes. This time we assessed private dilemma decisions in addition to
public dilemma decisions and perceived expectations. Second, we em-
ployed yet another method of manipulating whether warmth or com-
petence traits were situationally valued: participants imagined applying
for a prestigious scholarship that emphasized either warmth or com-
petence.6 If people employ strategic self-presentation when forming
dilemma judgments, participants who learn the scholarship foundation
values warmth should both expect and publicly select harm rejection
judgments more often, whereas participants who learn the foundation
values competence should both expect and publicly select harm ac-
ceptance judgments more often—however, private judgments should
remain unaffected. Conversely, if the manipulation simply primed
participants to differentially consider emotion or logic when forming
their answer, then private judgments should evince the same pattern as
expectations and public judgments.

10.1. Method

10.1.1. Participants
We obtained 200 American (117 males, 83 females, Mage = 32.42,

SD = 11.30) participants via Mechanical Turk, who received $0.25.
Again, this design provided ~99% power to detect the obtained in-
teraction. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two condi-
tions: warmth or competence emphasis (nwarmth_emphasis = 100;
ncompetence_emphasis = 100).

10.1.2. Procedure
Participants imagined they were interviewing for a prestigious

scholarship they really wanted. They read: You are interviewing with the
National Merit Foundation for a prestigious fellowship. It is extremely im-
portant for you to get the fellowship and you have been training a long time
to get it. During the interview, you remember what kind of person they are
looking for. The competence emphasis condition continued, “The ideal
scholar of our foundation is skilled, ambitious, and a good thinker,”

whereas the warmth emphasis condition continued: “The ideal scholar of
this foundation is good-natured, helpful, and a good listener” (bold in
original).

Participants then imagined they had answered numerous questions
about their background and the interview was going well—but one
final question remained that would impact whether or not they would
obtain the scholarship: the vaccine dilemma employed previously.
Participants read that dilemma, then indicated a) which answer they
thought the interviewers expected, b) which answer they would privately
make, and c) which answer they would publicly make in front of the
interviewers. Participants indicated each answer on 7-point scales from
harm is not appropriate (1) to harm is appropriate (7).

10.1.3. Results
We conducted a 2 (emphasis: warmth vs. competence) × 3 (deci-

sion type: expectation vs. private judgment vs. public judgment) re-
peated measures ANOVA with the first factor between and the second
factor within participants (see Fig. 4). This analysis yielded a main ef-
fect of condition: participants gave lower overall harm acceptability
ratings in the warmth (M = 5.40, SD = 1.91) than competence em-
phasis condition (M = 4.75, SD = 1.92), F(2, 197) = 3.21, p = .042,
ηp

2 = .03. There was no main effect for decision type, F(2, 197)
= 2.64, p = .072, ηp

2 = .013. However, results were qualified by the
expected interaction, F(2, 197) = 6.65, p < .001, ηp

2 = .05.
Post-hoc comparisons indicated that both expectations and public

judgments replicated Study 5: participants in the warmth emphasis
condition reported that interviewers expected less harm acceptance
(M = 4.60, SD = 2.31), than participants in the competence emphasis
condition (M = 5.64, SD = 2.24), F(1, 198) = 10.29, p = .002,
ηp

2 = .05. Likewise, participants in the warmth emphasis condition
were less likely to publicly indicate acceptance of outcome-maximizing
harm (M = 4.37, SD = 2.26), than participants in the competence
emphasis condition (M = 5.40, SD = 2.36), F(1, 198) = 10.10,
p = .002, ηp

2 = .05. However, private judgments remained unaffected
by the manipulation: participants in the warmth emphasis condition
(M = 5.28, SD = 2.25) did not significantly differ from participants in
the competence emphasis condition regarding harm acceptability
(M = 5.16, SD = 2.28), F(1, 198) = .13, p = .719, ηp

2 = .00.

10.1.4. Discussion
Study 6 replicated and extended the findings of Studies 4 and 5,

providing increased support for our argument that participants strate-
gically adjust dilemmas judgments in order to present situationally fa-
vorable impressions. Using a different manipulation, we again found
that participants both expected and publicly made fewer harm-accep-
tance judgments when the situation emphasized warmth than compe-
tence. However, private judgments remained unaffected by the ma-
nipulation. These findings rule out the possibility that the differences in
expectation and public judgment reflect priming, as private judgments
remained unaffected by the manipulation. Instead, these findings sug-
gest that participants employed strategic self-presentation to publicly
provide dilemma answers that accorded with expectations rather than
private considerations.

11. Study 7

Together with past findings (Rom et al., 2016), the current work
suggests that dilemma answers entail a warmth/competence trade-off:
rejecting harm makes one appear warm but less competent, whereas
accepting outcome-maximizing harm makes one appear cold but more
competent. Although people appear to strategically modify their di-
lemma judgments to emphasize either warmth or competence, doing so
entails the trade-off of appearing weaker on the converse trait. Yet, on
many occasions it may be optimal to present oneself as high on both
traits. For example, politicians may wish to appear both warm and
competent to increase chances of re-election, yet face dilemmas that pit

3
4
5
6

Expected Answer Private Answer Given Answer

A
cc
e
p
tin
g
o
u
tc
o
m
e
-m
a
xi
m
iz
in
g
h
a
rm

Warmth Emphasis Competence Emphasis

Fig. 4. Mean expected, private, and public dilemma decisions (accepting outcome-max-
imizing harm, upholding utilitarianism) when applying for a scholarship emphasizing
either warmth or competence, Study 6. Error bars reflect standard errors.

6 This manipulation was derived from a real life experience of the first author: she had
to complete a moral dilemma while applying for a prestigious fellowship, and tried to
guess which answer was expected.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
32

individual well-being against public interest, such as authorizing for-
ceful interrogations to obtain life-saving information, or directing
medical funding away from rare but deadly disorders towards wide-
spread problems. Is it possible to frame one’s dilemma decision so as to
reduce the warmth/competence trade-off previously obtained? Everett
et al. (2016) provided initial evidence consistent with this possibility:
when an injured soldier begged to death to avoid capture and torture by
the enemy, and decision-makers rejected this request, perceivers
viewed them as more moral and trustworthy when they offered cate-
gorical deontological justifications (i.e., “killing is wrong even if it has
good consequences”) compared to utilitarian or contractual reasons.
These arguments do not speak directly to perceptions of warmth or
competence, but they suggest that perceivers draw inferences from the
justifications decision-makers provide, beyond the decisions they make.

We hypothesized that decision-makers can augment perception of
their weaker trait by supplementing their dilemma decision itself with
justifications that appeal to emotions or to logic. If such appeals impact
dilemma perceptions, then people who accept causing outcome-max-
imizing harm may appear less cold by expressing emotional concern for
the victim of harm compared to people who accept causing harm
without expressing emotions. Conversely, people who reject harm may
appear less incompetent by expressing consideration of logical rea-
soning compared to people who reject harm without expressing logical
reasoning. Hence, we predicted a three-way interaction between di-
lemma decision, justification, and trait measure. To examine this pos-
sibility, we assessed warmth and competence perceptions of dilemma
decision-makers who either accepted or rejected harm, and who framed
their decision either in terms of emotion or cognition.

11.1. Method

11.1.1. Participants and design
We obtained 401 American (251 males, 150 females, Mage = 32.42,

SD = 11.30) participants via Mechanical Turk, who received $0.30.
Participants were randomly assigned to learn that a previous partici-
pant either accepted or rejected harm for either emotional or logical
reasons, and rated them on warmth and competence, for a 2 (ex-
planation: emotional vs. logical) × 2 (target decision: harm rejection
vs. acceptance) × 2 (personality dimension: warmth vs. competence)
design, where the first two factors varied between-subjects and the final
factor varied within-subjects. Despite the large sample, GPower in-
dicated that this study had only ~82% power to detect the obtained
three-way interaction (nemotional = 100; nlogical = 101).

11.1.2. Procedure
The procedure was similar to the other-perception condition in

Study 1: Participants viewed a photo of a university student named
Brad who ostensibly previously participated. They read the crying baby
dilemma and learned that Brad ostensibly either accepted or rejected
the specified harm, accompanied by a brief written explanation em-
phasizing either emotional or logical justifications for this decision.

Specifically, in the emotional harm rejection condition, participants
read, “No, it is completely unacceptable to kill the baby! It doesn’t matter
what the reasons are; I just could not live with myself if I hurt an innocent
little baby. Killing is forbidden for any reason and never justified.” In the in
logical harm rejection condition participants read, “No, it is unacceptable
to kill the baby! I understand that doing so makes logical sense, but killing
some people to protect others creates an immoral society. It is better to live in
a society that forbids killing for any reason than one where killing some
people is justified to help others.” In the emotional harm acceptance
condition participants read, “Yes, it is acceptable to kill the baby. It is true
that it would break my heart to kill an innocent baby, but it just makes sense
to perform the action that saves everybody. It upsets me very much, but it’s
the only logical thing to do.” Finally, in the rational harm acceptance
condition participants read, “Yes, it is completely acceptable to kill the
baby! It just makes sense to perform the action that saves everybody. It’s the
only logical thing to do.” After reading Brad’s dilemma decision and
justification, participants rated Brad’s warmth (α = .87) and compe-
tence (α = .82) as before.

11.1.3. Results
11.1.3.1. Target warmth and competence. We submitted ratings to a 2
(justification type: emotional vs. logical) × 2 (target decision: harm
rejection vs. acceptance) × 2 (personality dimension: warmth vs.
competence) repeated-measures ANOVA with the first two factors
between-subjects and the last factor within-subjects (see Fig. 5). There
was no main effect for justification type, F(1, 397) = 0.00, p = .990,
ηp

2 = .00, or personality dimension, F(1, 397) = .86, p = .355,
ηp

2 = .00. However, there was a main effect of target decision:
participants gave higher ratings overall when Brad rejected (M = 5.10,
SD = 1.10) versus accepted causing harm (M = 4.70, SD = .99), F(1,
397) = 15.13, p < .001, ηp

2 = .04. These results were qualified by
significant two-way interactions between justification type and
personality dimension, F(1, 397) = 31.91, p < .001, ηp

2 = .07, and
between target decision and personality dimension, F(1, 397) = 260.04,
p < .001, ηp

2 = .40. The three-way interaction did not approach
conventional levels of significance, F(1, 397) = 2.27, p = .136,
ηp

2 = .01, so we examined the two-way interactions.

3
4
5
6

Emotional Explanation Logical Explanation Emotional Explanation Logical Explanation

Harm-rejection

W
a
rm
th
a
n
d
C
o
m
p
e
te
n
ce
R
a
tin

g
s

Warmth Competence

Harm-acceptance

Fig. 5. Warmth and competence ratings when Brad rejected
or accepted causing harm and either gave an emotional or
logical explanation, Study 7. Error bars reflect standard er-
rors.

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
33

The first interaction indicated that justifications impacted warmth
and competence decisions: perceivers rated Brad as higher on warmth
when he provided emotional justifications (M = 5.05, SD = 1.30) than
when he provided rational justifications (M = 4.78, SD = 1.34), F(1,
399) = 4.28, p = .039, ηp

2 = .01, whereas they rated him higher on
competence when he provided rational (M = 5.01, SD = 1.06) than
emotional justifications (M = 4.74, SD = 1.21), F(1, 399) = 5.61,
p = .018, ηp

2 = .01.
The second interaction replicated previous findings by showing that

dilemma decisions impacted warmth and competence ratings: percei-
vers rated Brad as higher on warmth when he rejected outcome-max-
imizing harm (upholding deontology) (M = 5.51, SD = 1.15) than
when he accepted outcome-maximizing harm (upholding utilitar-
ianism) (M = 4.34, SD = 1.24), F(1, 399) = 96.16, p < .001, ηp

2 = .19, whereas they rated him as higher on competence when he
accepted outcome-maximizing harm (upholding utilitarianism)
(M = 5.10, SD = .98) than when he rejected outcome-maximizing
harm (upholding deontology) (M = 4.69, SD = 1.27), F(1, 399)
= 10.47, p = .001, ηp

2 = .03.

11.1.4. Discussion
Our hypothesis was partially supported. Although we did not find

the anticipated predicted three-way interaction, the two-way interac-
tion between justification and trait measure suggested that emotional
justifications boosted perceptions of warmth, and logical justifications
boosted perceptions of competence, regardless of target decision.
Moreover, the two-way interaction between dilemma decision and trait
measure replicated the warmth/competence trade-off implied by di-
lemma decisions demonstrated in previous work (Rom et al., 2016).
These findings suggest that decision-makers may be able to bolster
perceptions of warmth or competence via relevant justifications, in-
dependent of their actual judgment. Hence, decision-makers who ac-
cept harm may be able to offset concerns about their warmth by
framing their decision in emotional terms, and decision-makers who
reject harm may be offset concerns about their competence by framing
their decision in logical terms. These findings align with those of
Everett et al. (2016), suggesting that beyond the judgment itself, per-
ceivers care about why decision-makers arrived at their judgment.

12. General discussion

Across seven studies, we garnered evidence that people hold accu-
rate meta-perceptions regarding whether their dilemma decisions
convey warmth or competence, and strategically adjust dilemma
judgments to present themselves favorably. Study 1 replicated past
work (Rom et al., 2016) by demonstrating participants typically rated
decision-makers who rejected harm (upholding deontology) as warmer
and more moral, but less competent, than decision-makers who ac-
cepted outcome-maximizing harm (upholding utilitarianism), together
with the novel finding that participants anticipated that others would
rate them according to the same warmth/competence tradeoff fol-
lowing the same respective decisions (though the effect for competence
did not always reach significance). These findings obtained even
though, privately, participants rated themselves as high on both
warmth and competence regardless of their decision. Moreover, parti-
cipants anticipated that others’ warmth and competence ratings would
reflect whichever judgment those others learned participants made,
even when this belief was erroneous (Study 2). Importantly, meta-
perceptions of this warmth/competence trade-off generalized to a bat-
tery of various dilemma stimuli and a different sample (Study 3). Thus,
it seems clear that people hold accurate meta-perceptions regarding
how others perceive them based on their dilemma judgments, that these
meta-perceptions differ from self-perceptions, track information avail-
able to others, and do not merely reflect individual differences in which
judgments people prefer.

Next, we examined whether people use meta-perception information

to strategically adjust their judgments. First, we demonstrated that di-
lemma decisions are sensitive to context: When we framed the Study 4 as
focusing differences in emotional competency, participants were more
likely to reject causing harm (upholding deontology), thereby emphasizing
their warmth and emotional processing, compared to when the study was
framed as examining differences in logical reasoning, when participants
were more likely to accept harm (upholding utilitarianism), thereby em-
phasizing their competence and logical skills. Study 5 replicated this
finding using a different manipulation, where participants simulated in-
terviewing for a job as a military physician, where the description em-
phasized either military competency or physician care. Participants were
more likely to reject harm in the care than competency condition. Study 6
replicated both of these effects using yet another manipulation—a scho-
larship application that emphasized either academic competency or in-
terpersonal skills. Importantly, this manipulation influenced both ex-
pectations and public judgments—but failed to impact private judgments,
suggesting that participants were strategically adjusting dilemma judg-
ments rather than merely responding to primes in the stimulus materials.

Finally, Study 7 demonstrated that decision-makers can use com-
munication strategies to augment relevant trait. Specifically, decision-
makers can provide either emotional or logical justifications for either
dilemma judgment, and these justifications impact perceptions of
warmth and competence independent of the decision they make. Hence,
decision-makers who accept harm (upholding deontology) can offset
perceptions of incompetence by describing logical reasons for their
decision, whereas decision-makers who accept outcome-maximizing
harm (upholding utilitarianism) can offset perceptions of coldness by
describing emotional experiences.

In each case, the impacts of dilemma decisions on warmth perceptions
was mirrored by similar patterns on ratings of decision-maker morality.
Indeed, warmth and morality correlated highly in all studies. Such findings
could be taken as evidence that warmth and morality reflect a single core
construct, but recent work suggests that lay people draw important dis-
tinctions between warmth/sociability (i.e., interpersonal friendliness) and
morality (e.g., trustworthiness—see Brambilla et al., 2011; Goodwin et al.,
2014). Such findings could also reflect the possibility that the current
measure of warmth actually reflects moral character evaluations instead of
genuine perceptions of warmth/sociability, by including items such as
sincere. However, as noted above, re-analyses employing revised compo-
sites excluding such terms, or indeed using only the single item warm
demonstrate the same pattern as the warmth composite using all warmth
items. Therefore, we suggest that perceivers draw inferences of both
warmth and morality from others’ deontological dilemma judgments, and
these inferences happen to covary substantially in the current paradigm. It
may be that these inferences stem from different aspects of deontological
judgments—perhaps warmth perceptions reflect inferences of emotional
processing, whereas morality inferences reflect perceptions of rule-follo-
wing—which covary in the current paradigm. Consistent with this possi-
bility, Rom et al. (2016) found that perceptions of emotional processing
mediated the effect of dilemma judgment on perceptions of warmth—but
not on perceptions of morality. Future work might profit from disen-
tangling which aspects of deontological decision-making imply warmth
and which imply morality.

13. Implications for models of moral judgment

The dual-process model of moral judgment (Greene et al., 2001) and
other popular models (Cushman, 2013; Crockett, 2013; Sunstein, 2005;
Mikhail, 2007a, 2007b) describe the impact of basic psychological
processes on moral dilemma judgments, such as affective reactions to
harm, cognitive evaluations of outcomes, or heuristic application of
moral rules. Importantly, all of these processes should apply similarly
whether participants respond to moral dilemmas alone on a desert is-
land or during a live television broadcast watched by millions. We do
not dispute the importance of basic processes for influencing dilemma
judgments, but we suggest that existing theories are incomplete if they

S.C. Rom, P. Conway Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 24–37
34

treat public versus private circumstances as identical. We suggest that
answering dilemmas while on television—or in any social situatio-
n—evokes concern over others’ perceptions of ones’ dilemma judgment,
and how that judgment reflects on oneself. People appear aware of the
warmth/competence trade-off others infer from their decision, and
strategically modify judgments to present themselves favorably. Hence,
higher-order social processes causally contribute to dilemma responses,
in addition to basic processes.

The finding that strategic self-presentation drives variance in di-
lemma judgments suggests that researchers should revisit earlier find-
ings to consider whether self-presentation may account for some of the
variance ascribed to basic processes. For example, various researchers
have documented gender differences in dilemma judgments (e.g.,
Arutyunova, Alexandrov, & Hauser, 2016; Fumagalli et al., 2010), such
that women evince stronger inclinations to reject harm than men, but
similar inclinations to maximize outcomes, leading to higher reports of
conflict (Friesdorf, Conway, & Gawronski, 2015). Typically, researchers
explain such gender differences in terms of biologically-based con-
structs such as empathy (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983) and testosterone
(Carney & Mason, 2010), or differences in socialization practices
(Eagly & Wood, 1999). However, the current findings raise an alter-
native possibility: it may be that women experience stronger social
expectations to avoid causing harm than do men, even as they ap-
preciate the logic of doing so. After all, women often face pressure to
appear both warm and competent, whereas often competence alone
often meets male role expectations (Rudman & Glick, 1999). Moreover,
women often feel more obliged to engage in self-presentation than do
men (Deaux & Major, 1987). Such expectations could lead women to
reject harm (upholding deontology) more frequently, despite experi-
encing similar basic processing as do men.

In other work, Lucas and Livingstone (2014) found that participants
who socially connected with others made more utilitarian judgments,
presumably because social connection reduced aversive affect asso-
ciated with deontological judgments. However, our results suggest an
alternative process: participants who had already connected with others
may have felt they established sufficient evidence of warmth or mor-
ality that they could afford to display other qualities, such as compe-
tence. Indeed, such alternative explanations may occur even in studies
where there is no direct social contact between participants and others
(e.g., online studies). From a Griceian (Grice, 1989) perspective, every
research study is effectively an act of social communication between
the participant and the experimenter. Cues in the framing, instructions,
or manipulations of any dilemma study may hint at whether warmth or
competence is contextually prioritized, leading participants to infer that
one or another dilemma answer is preferred.

Indeed, self-presentation of this sort may even account for some of
the response variance between the original trolley dilemma, where
approximately 80% of people accept causing harm to save lives, and the
footbridge dilemma, where about 80% of people reject causing harm
(Greene et al., 2001). In the footbridge dilemma, harm acceptance
means being willing to push and thereby kill with one’s own hands,
whereas in the trolley dilemma harm, acceptance means simply
pressing a button. Research suggests that employing the personal force
of one’s physical being to kill another is more aversive than employing a
mechanical mediator (Greene et al., 2009). Accordingly, lay perceivers
may view harm caused through personal force as more likely evidence
of cold-heartedness than harm caused through intermediaries—thereby
creating greater social pressure to avoid causing harm on the footbridge
than trolley dilemma. Consistent with this possibility, Everett et al.
(2016) found that perceivers drew important distinctions between the
trustworthiness of decision-makers who accepted vs. rejected harm on
the footbridge dilemma, but less of a distinction between those who
accepted vs. rejected harm on the trolley dilemma. Future work should
directly examine social expectations of appropriate answers in such
cases.

14. Limitations

This research shares limitations with nearly all dilemma research: of
necessity, participants make decisions about hypothetical scenarios
rather than actual situations. Hence, it remains possible that percep-
tions and meta-perceptions of real-life dilemma decisions (such as
Turing’s decision from the beginning of the paper) evince different or
even stronger effects. In addition, like most dilemma research, the di-
lemmas employed here vary on a number of factors that may influence
judgments, such as whether the victim of harm is guilty of causing
danger or not, or is fated to die or not (Christensen, Flexas, Calabrese,
Gut, & Gomila, 2014). Future work should systematically vary each of
these factors to determine whether they impact perceptions and meta-
perceptions of dilemma judgments. Moreover, the dilemmas employed
here examine only violations of moral proscriptions—causing harm to
maximize outcomes—whereas it is possible to conceptualize dilemmas
involving prescription violations—saving one person at a risk to man-
y—that may entail different perceptions and meta-perceptions
(Gawronski et al., 2015). Future work may profit by comparing such
dilemmas.

In addition, although the current work employed participants from
different countries in several languages, all participants hailed from
broader ‘Western’ culture. Recent work has documented that East Asian
participants are less likely to endorse outcome-maximizing harm than
Western participants (e.g., Gold, Colman, & Pulford, 2014). One reason
for this difference may be increased fatalism in Asian culture—the be-
lief that one should not interfere with destiny (Chih-Long, 2013). It
remains unclear whether perceptions of dilemma judgments also reflect
such cultural variation—the cultural background of both perceivers and
decision-makers may matter. Future research might profitably in-
vestigate these possibilities.

15. Conclusion

Building on work examining the role of basic psychological pro-
cesses in driving dilemma judgments, the current work provides evi-
dence that higher-order social processes also play a role. Participants
demonstrated accurate meta-insight into how warm and competent
their dilemma judgments would make them appear to others, and
strategically shifted public (but not private) dilemma judgments to
accord with such expectations depending on whether situations prior-
itized warmth or competence. These findings suggest that classic
models of dilemma decision-making (e.g., Greene et al., 2001) under-
estimate the influence of social considerations. When Allied forces al-
lowed the Axis raid on Coventry to proceed so as to protect the Enigma
Code decryption, they likely engaged in not only basic emotional and
logical processing, but also considered how their allies would have
reacted to this decision. In the midst of a desperate war, they selected a
decision that made them appear competent at the cost of warmth—had
circumstances been different, perhaps they would have selected an
entirely different answer.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.003.

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  • The strategic moral self: Self-presentation shapes moral dilemma judgments
  • Moral dilemma judgments: basic vs. social processes
    Meta-perceptions regarding dilemma judgments
    Strategic self-presentation in dilemma judgments
    Overview
    Study 1
    Method
    Participants
    Procedure
    Results
    Discussion

    Study 2
    Method
    Participants
    Procedure
    Results
    Discussion

    Study 3
    Method
    Participants
    Procedure
    Results
    Discussion

    Study 4
    Method
    Participants
    Procedure
    Results and discussion

    Study 5
    Method
    Participants and design
    Procedure
    Results
    Discussion

    Study 6
    Method
    Participants
    Procedure
    Results
    Discussion

    Study 7
    Method
    Participants and design
    Procedure
    Results
    Target warmth and competence
    Discussion

    General discussion
    Implications for models of moral judgment
    Limitations
    Conclusion
    Supplementary data
    References

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Full length article

Deindividuation effects on normative and informational social influence
within computer-mediated-communication

Serena Coppolino Perfumia,b,∗, Franco Bagnolic, Corrado Caudekd, Andrea Guazzinie

a Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, S-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
bDepartment of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Florence, 50135, Florence, Italy
c Department of Physics and Astronomy and Center for the Study of Complex Dynamics (CSDC), University of Florence, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, also INFN sec, Florence,
Italy
dDepartment of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Research and Children’s Health (NEUROFARBA) – sect. Psychology, University of Florence, 50135, Florence, Italy
e Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology and Center for the Study of Complex Dynamics (CSDC), University of Florence, 50135, Florence, Italy

A R

T

I C L E I N F O

Keywords:
Social influence
Conformity
Computer-mediated-communication
Anonymity
Deindividuation

A B S T R A C T

Research on social influence shows that different patterns take place when this phenomenon happens within
computer-mediated-communication (CMC), if compared to face-to-face interaction. Informational social influ-
ence can still easily take place also by means of CMC, however normative influence seems to be more affected by
the environmental characteristics. Different authors have theorized that deindividuation nullifies the effects of
normative influence, but the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects theorizes that users will conform
even when deindividuated, but only if social identity is made salient.

The two typologies of social influence have never been studied in comparison, therefore in our work, we
decided to create an online experiment to observe how the same variables affect them, and in particular how
deindividuation works in both cases. The 181 experimental subjects that took part, performed 3 tasks: one
aiming to elicit normative influence, and two semantic tasks created to test informational influence. Entropy has
been used as a mathematical assessment of information availability.

Our results show that normative influence becomes almost ineffective within CMC (1.4% of conformity) when
subjects are deindividuated.

Informational influence is generally more effective than normative influence within CMC (15–29% of con-
formity), but similarly to normative influence, it is inhibited by deindividuation.

1. Introduction

With the diffusion of social networking platforms, the social and
information seeking-related human behaviors have been affected by the
“new” environment. Information seeking increasingly takes place on
social media platforms, relying on what a users’ contacts and followed
pages share (Zubiaga, Liakata, Procter, Hoi, & Tolmie, 2016).

Because of this filtering and selection, the users’ knowledge-building
process could be severely biased and polarized.

For example, a study shows that 72% of participants (college stu-
dents) trusted links sent by friends, even if they contained phishing
attempts (Jagatic, Johnson, Jakobsson, & Menczer,

2007).

The recent debate on fake news, highlighted the potential link be-
tween the increase in their spread, and the structure of social networks
as well as their embedded algorithms, which turned these environments
into “echo chambers”, in which users are selectively exposed to

information, and tend to filter the information in order to reinforce
their positions (confirmation bias), rather than to find alternatives (Del
Vicario et al., 2016).

These factors highlight the importance of studying the effects of
social influence within computer-mediated-communication, in order to
understand which environmental factors can enhance its effects.

Social norms exist also in online environments, but the users’ per-
ception of them can be different according to the platform, to anon-
ymity and the social ties among contacts. Therefore, compliance to
social norms can emerge in different ways, than those observable in
face-to-face interaction.

Also, information-seeking behavior can be affected by online en-
vironments: on one side we observe its interrelation with social norms,
especially when it takes place on social media platforms, and users
gather information on the basis of what they read on their personal
newsfeed. However, we also observe how users can rely on opinions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.11.017
Received 29 March 2018; Received in revised form 9 October 2018; Accepted 7 November 2018

∗ Corresponding author. Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, S-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden.
E-mail address: serena.perfumi@sociology.su.se (S. Coppolino Perfumi).

Computers in Human Behavior 92 (2019) 230–

237

Available online 13 November 2018
0747-5632/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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expressed by unknown actors, as it happens on platforms like
TripAdvisor.

The present study, using online experiments, aims to separate
norms-oriented social influence from information-oriented social in-
fluence, in order to observe which elements and environmental factors
have an effect on both typologies and which are peculiar for each.

1.1. Theoretical framework

A major understanding on the functioning of social influence came
about thanks to the pioneering works of Sherif (1937) and then Asch
(1951, 1955, 1956). The authors studied how the physical presence of
other people can lead experimental subjects to conform their judgment
to the one of the others. They used two different types of tasks: while in
Asch conformity experiments, guessing the correct answer could be
straightforward (Asch, 1955, 1956; Asch & Guetzkow, 1951), Sherif
used the autokinetic effect, so a more ambiguous task, to test the effects
of social influence (Sherif, 1937). From these experiments, two typol-
ogies of social influence have been identified, called “normative” when
people conform in order to satisfy a need to belong and comply to social
norms, as observed in Asch’s experiments, and “informational” when
the subjects lack on information in order to perform a task, as observed
in the autokinetic experiment (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). According to
this theorization proposed by Deutsch and Gerard (1955), we can say
that we are able to observe normative social influence in Asch’s con-
formity experiments, because the task is relatively easy and the sub-
jects, when interviewed after taking part to the experiment stated that
they were able to spot the correct answer, but conform in order not to
break the social norms and be group outsiders. Instead, given that the
task presented in the autokinetic experiment is more ambiguous, as it is
based on a visual illusion, in this case we can say that subjects conform
because they are unsure on how to proceed.

While, as observed in these classical studies, to elicit conformity in
face-to-face situations, the physical presence of other people and being
exposed to their judgment can be enough, things go differently when
people interact online, especially for normative social influence.

Indeed, it is still unclear which elements can have the power to lead
people to conform during computer-mediated-communication.

Deindividuation, namely the diminished perception of one’s per-
sonal traits (Zimbardo, 1969), has been identified as a potential key
element in the discourse on normative influence.

The original deindividuation model was proposed by Zimbardo in
1969, and the author identified a series of variables that according to
him can lead to a deindividuation state. The variables considered by
Zimbardo are for example anonymity, arousal, sensory overload, novel
or unstructured situations, involvement in the act, and the use of al-
tering substances (Zimbardo, 1969). Several other authors suggest that
if people interact while being in a deindividuation state, normative
social influence can disappear (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955; Latané, 1981;
Lott & Lott, 1965; Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). This happens
because there is not the possibility to identify the interlocutors, due to a
lack of actual or perceived proximity, and consequently, deindividua-
tion should lighten the pressure to act according to social norms
(Latané, 1981).

Furthermore, a study which tested antinormative behavior by
counterposing deindividuation to the presence of an explicit aggressive
social norm, showed that subjects were actually more aggressive when
deindividuated, rather than when exposed to the explicit norm, so in
this case, deindividuation resulted to be more powerful in leading to
antinormative behavior (Mann, Newton, & Innes, 1982).

A significant advancement in explaining the functioning of norma-
tive social influence in online environments is represented by the
contribution provided by the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation
Effects (SIDE Model), that takes the concept of deindividuation and
expands it, explaining its link and implications on social influence in
online environments (Spears, Postmes, Lea, & Wolbert, 2002).

The authors theorize that deindividuation is indeed likely to occur
in online environments, but it can become a powerful tool to trigger
conformity: given that while deindividuated, subjects have a dimin-
ished perception of their personal traits, if the group the subjects are
interacting with is made salient, then the subjects will be more likely to
conform (Spears, Postmes, & Lea, 2018).

This happens because combining a lack of relevance of one’s per-
sonality with an enhancement of the importance of the interlocutors,
will lead the subjects to identify at the group level, and consequently to
comply to the social norms. The experimental results seem to confirm
the predictions presented by the SIDE Model (Lee, 2004; Postmes,
Spears, Sakhel, & De Groot, 2001), but it is not clear what happens
when users are deindividuated but the group saliency is not enhanced.

On the matter of informational influence during computer-medi-
ated-communication instead, studies have focused on different aspects.

As aforementioned, a visible example of informational influence in
online environments is represented by users making choices on the
basis of reviews or ratings provided by other unknown users while
using platforms such as Tripadvisor, Uber or Airbnb (Liu & Zhang,
2010), but other examples show that it can take place easily also in
other ways.

A study conducted by Rosander and Eriksson (2012), shows that
users facing a general knowledge quiz in which they were exposed to
histograms showing the distribution of the answers provided by other
unknown users, conformed in high percentages (52%).

While many studies on online consumers behavior focused on fac-
tors such as the perceived importance of feedback (Liu & Zhang, 2010)
on informational influence, or on the conjunct effect of informational
and normative influence on behavior when subjects interact without
personal contact (LaTour & Manrai, 1989), no study tried to isolate it,
and point out the environmental factors that could be able to enhance
or diminish the compliance of users in this case. Furthermore, no study
tested the effects of deindividuation on informational influence.

In order to test and fulfill the predictions developed based on the
literature, we developed an experimental framework aiming to study
separately the two typologies of social influence during computer-
mediated-communication.

On one side, we reduced group saliency to test how deindividuation
works on both typologies of social influence and controlled the possible
interactions between some psychological dimensions and the operative
variables.

On the other side, we calculated the items entropy to test if task
ambiguity increases informational-based compliance. The environ-
mental factors that we decided to manipulate and study in relation to
both typologies of social influence are anonymity and physical isola-
tion, as their combination can trigger deindividuation.

1.2. Overview and predictions

To test online normative influence, we replicated Asch’s conformity
experiment (Asch, 1955, 1956; Asch & Guetzkow, 1951) on a web-
based platform, while to test online informational influence we created
two linguistic tasks of increasing ambiguity, designed adopting the
same structure of the “classical” Asch’s items. Task ambiguity was
measured by calculating the items’ entropy, and in this way, we were
able to assess the subjects’ lack of information. The diversity of the
tasks, allowed us to measure the interaction between anonymity, phy-
sical isolation, and degree of ambiguity, in relation to the behavior of
the experimental subjects. Considering the literature, we could for-
mulate the following predictions:

• H1) Diminished effectiveness of normative influence due to the
combination of a deindividuation state given by anonymity and
physical isolation, and minimum levels of group saliency, as theo-
rized by several authors (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955; Latané, 1981;
Lott & Lott, 1965; Short et al., 1976) and hypothesized by the SIDE

S. Coppolino Perfumi et al. Computers in Human Behavior 92 (2019) 230–237

231

Model (Postmes et al., 2001).

• H2) There is no specific evidence to build on, on the potential re-
lationship between deindividuation and informational influence (if
separated by normative influence), but we expect it to have the
same inhibitory effect it has on normative influence (Lee, 2007). The
effect of the anonymity and physical isolation variables alone will
also be controlled.

• H3) We expect a positive correlation between conformity and task
ambiguity, given that with more ambiguous items the subjects will
possess less information on how to handle the task, and might rely
on other people’s judgment (Cialdini & Trost, 1998; Rosander &
Eriksson, 2012).

We also controlled the interaction of personality and psychological
traits on conformity. In order to make sure that the analyzed effects
were relatable to the manipulated features and not to particular psy-
chological traits, we measured the psychological dimensions that ac-
cording to literature, result related to some extent to conformity. Only a
few studies analyzed the relation between conformity and personality
traits, suggesting some interesting connections between social con-
formity and Emotional Stability, Agreeableness and Closeness
(DeYoung, Peterson, & Higgins, 2002). So we expect that:

• H4) Factors as Neuroticism, Surgency (a trait linked to Extraversion)
and Closeness will have an inhibitory effect on conformity

• H5) Agreeableness will increase the tendency to yield to majority
pressure.

However, it is necessary to consider the contextual peculiarities,
illustrated by both the deindividuation explanation provided by lit-
erature (Latané, 1981; Postmes et al., 2001; Tsikerdekis, 2013), and the
theoretical framework supporting the idea that real and virtual iden-
tities are not consistent (Kim & Sherman, 2007), that highlight the lack
of saliency of personality traits in anonymity conditions, which may
predict a:

• H6) weak general effect of personality traits, especially if measured
with scales calibrated to assess “real life” traits.

Finally, since the experiment was conducted both in group and
single (i.e., physical isolation) conditions, according to the existing
literature that illustrates how the mere presence of other people can
affect an individual’s performance (Markus, 1978), we expect:

• H7) Physical isolation and group conditions to produce significantly
different behavioral outcomes.

2. Method

In order to analyze the variables and dimensions of interests, the
experiment was structured as follows. To analyze the anonymity effect
on conformity, we manipulated anonymity levels making the subjects
perform the experiment in either full or partial anonymity (i.e., anon-
ymity vs nonymity). In the full anonymity condition, the participants
were distinguished from the other group members by a number re-
presenting their response order, while in the nonymity condition they
had to provide their name and surname and could see the others’. To
test the physical isolation variable, we made the subjects perform the
experiment alone (physical isolation) or with other experimental sub-
jects in the same room (group condition). In the group condition, the
subjects were not interacting with each other but with other agents: the
group of confederates in the platform was composed by programmed
bots that in some trials provided the correct answer, and in some other
the wrong one. In order to induce normative influence, we adapted
Asch’s original line-judgment task for an online support and adminis-
tered it as first task (Asch, 1956). We also maintained the original

pattern in making the confederates provide wrong and correct answers.
Adopting the structure of the classic Asch’s experiment, we designed
two brand new tasks, respectively labeled “cultural” and “appercep-
tive”, in order to manipulate ambiguity both between tasks and among
the single items. The cultural task consisted in a target word (primer)
associated with three possible answer options more or less semantically
related (targets). The apperceptive task, instead, consisted in three
different combinations of real and invented words (i.e., condition A:
real primer word vs invented words as answer option; condition B:
invented primer word vs real words as answer option; condition C:
invented prime word vs invented words as answer option). In order to
measure the informational influence effects, we first estimated the
items’ entropy, defined as an inverse function of the probability to
observe a certain association between the prime and the target. The
entropy of each item, measured by means of a preliminary survey ad-
ministered to an ad hoc sample, represents a quantitative estimation of
the “lack degree” of information contained by each item. A study on the
voting tendencies related to conformity, hypothesized this factor to be
inversely related to entropy, since the more predictable the behavior is
(i.e., low entropy), the higher is the tendency to conform (Coleman,
2004). Nevertheless, such result describes the behavior of a subject
under a direct majority pressure. In our study we exposed the experi-
mental subjects to a constant majority pressure always towards a more
entropic answer. In this way, the cultural and apperceptive tasks, in-
vestigate the relation between entropy of the choice, and the informa-
tional influence dynamics.

2.1. Sampling and participants

The research was conducted in accordance with the guidelines for
the ethical treatment of human participants of the Italian Psychological
Association (AIP). The participants were recruited with a snowball
sampling strategy. Most of them were undergraduate students from an
Italian university. All participants gave their consent to participate and
had the possibility to withdraw from the experiment at any time. The
participants were 181 (76.8% identifying as female) and all of them
were over 18 years of age (age: M=22.11, S D=4.44). All the par-
ticipants filled out the survey and none of them withdrew during the
experiment. In order to obtain a robust approximation of the optimal
sample size, disregarding the debate about the standard sample size
estimation for GLMM (Bolker et al., 2009), we conducted a power
analysis by reducing the hypotheses to the case of two samples’ mean
comparison under a 2-sided equality hypothesis (eqs. (1)–(3)) (Chow,
Shao, Wang, & Lokhnygina, 2017). The results are reported in Table 1.

⎜ ⎟=


+ ⎞


+



− −
n

K
σ

Z Z

μ μ

1 1b

β

a b

1 1σ2

(1)

with

− = − + − −− −( ) ( )β ϕ Z Z ϕ Z Z1 α α1 2 1 2 (2)
and

Table

1

Sample size estimation using the variable Conformity as dependent measure, to
compare 2 means from 2 samples with 2 sided equality hypothesis, requiring a
Power (1− β) of 80%, and a Type I Error confidence level (α) of 5%.

Dimension Mean test
(SD)

Control mean
(SD)

K Na/Nb Sample size

Required Available

Anonymity 18%
(11%)

15% (7%) 1.06 86 88

Physical Isolation 18%
(10%)

14% (7%) 0.5 106 120

S. Coppolino Perfumi et al. Computers in Human Behavior 92 (2019) 230–237

232

=

+
Z

μ μ

σ
A B

n n
1 1
a b (3)

where, =K nn
a
b
, σ is the standard deviation, Φ is the standard Normal

distribution function, −ϕ 1 is the standard Normal quantile function, α is
Type I error, and β is Type II error, meaning 1− β is power. This
analysis revealed that approximately 180 participants would be needed
to achieve 80% power (1− β) at a 0.05 α level (α=0.05).

The exclusion criteria regarded any type of psychiatric diagnosis
and a lack of fluency in the Italian language, since the cultural and
apperceptive tasks were of semantic nature. Out of 181 subjects, 61
participants performed the experiment in the group condition (groups
of six, seven or eight people), while 120 performed the experiment in
the physical isolation condition (Table 2).

The participants were also balanced according to the anonymity
condition and 93 performed the experiment in partial anonymity (i.e.,
“nonymity”), while 88 in full anonymity (Table 3).

Since the recruitment method consisted in a snowball sampling, we
have not been able to balance the subjects according to their genders
and as consequence, the majority of them identified as females (76.8%,
versus 23.2% identifying as males). This factor has been controlled
during the data analysis.

2.2. Materials and apparatus

At first, we administered a series of scales in order to determine
psychological traits and states. The scales have been chosen according
to the dimension they aim to measure and its relation to social influ-
ence. Studies have investigated the link between conformity and Big-
Five traits, showing relations between some traits and conformity
(DeYoung et al., 2002). Anxiety has been identified as a potential
predictor for conformity, while self-esteem and self-efficacy predict the
opposite tendency, namely nonconformity (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).
Finally, according to the literature, a high sense of community results to
be positively related to conformity (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). For
these reasons, we chose scales that measure the aforementioned di-
mensions:

• Five Factor Adjective Short Test (5-FasT) (Giannini, Pannocchia,
Grotto, & Gori, 2012), a short version of the Big Five aiming to asses
personality traits. It comprises 26 dichotomous items (true-false).
All the subscales present a good reliability (Neuroticism=0.78;
Surgency=0.73; Agreeableness= 0.71; Closeness= 0.71; Con-
scientiousness= 0.70)

• The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults (Spielberger & Gorsuch,
1983), a self-reporting 20-item measure on state and trait anxiety.
The items are on a 4-point Likert scale whose range goes from 1 (not
at all) to 4 (very much so). The scale appears to have an excellent
test-retest reliability (r=0.88) (Grös, Antony, Simms, & McCabe,

2007).

• The Multidimensional Sense Of Community Scale, a 26-item scale on
which each item is on a 4-point Likert scale (4-strongly agree to 1-
strongly disagree). The scale results to have good reliability and
good construct validity (Cronbach Alpha’s from 0.61 to 0.80)
(Prezza, Pacilli, Barbaranelli, & Zampatti, 2009)

• The Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, a 10-item scale on which each
item is on a 4-point Likert scale (4-strongly agree to 1-strongly
disagree). The scale has an excellent internal consistency (coeffi-
cient of reproducibility of .92), and stability (0.85 and 0.88 on a 2
weeks test-retest) (Rosenberg, 1965).

• The General Self-Efficacy Scale (Sibilia, Schwarzer, & Jerusalem,
1995), a 10-item scale with items on a 4-point Likert scale (1-not at
all true, 4-exactly true). The scale has a good reliability with
Cronbach Alphas’ ranging from 0.76 to 0.90 (Schwarzer &
Jerusalem, 2010).

For what concerns the experiment, besides resizing Asch’s visual
task (Asch, 1956) for online supports, we created the cultural and ap-
perceptive tasks, of semantic nature: examples of cultural and apper-
ceptive tasks items are in Fig. 1.

Within the two tasks, we calculated the item’s entropy, in order to
mathematically assess the ambiguity of the stimuli. We presented the
cultural items to a sample of 71 subjects and the apperceptive to 79
subjects, collected their answers and calculated frequencies and per-
centage. On the basis of the latter, we proceeded to calculate the en-
tropy for items i, using an equation (4) with pkj =(Σni=1 rki )/n, and “n”
indicating the respondents to item k.

∑= −
=

E p logpk
j

j
k

j
k
1

3

(4)

Finally, according to the median, we divided the items in high and
low entropy (Fig. 1). For what concerns the cultural and apperceptive
items, the correct answer was the most chosen during the pre-test, so,
when the majority gave a unanimous incorrect answer, they picked the
least chosen option. However, differently from Asch’s task, in some
cases we randomized the majority’s choices in order to make the in-
teraction more believable. The experiment was composed by 20 Asch-
task items, 45 cultural items and 45 apperceptive items, for a total of
110. The experiment was performed on an online software graphically
based on the Crutchfield apparatus (Crutchfield, 1955), designed by us
on Google Scripts (Fig. 2).

The interface was designed to allow interaction between the ex-
perimental subject and six other confederates, for a total of seven ac-
tors: the experimental subject was always placed in sixth position (Asch
& Guetzkow, 1951), and the interface simulated the responses of six
other non-existing subjects. It also provided the possibility to record the
subjects’ response times and control anonymity, displaying only num-
bers associated with each group member in the full anonymity condi-
tion, and asking to provide name and surname, and showing fictional
names and surnames in the nonymity condition. The experimental
subjects could see the answers of the other fake group members beside
their name or identification, and the stimulus appeared only when their
turn came. After the experiment, we administered a questionnaire in-
vestigating the subjects’ experience, using questions based on Asch’s
post-experimental interview (Asch, 1956).

2.3. Procedure

The experiment was presented as a study on visual and semantic
perception, in order to avoid biases. The group-condition experiment
took place in a computer room, where groups of 6, 7 or 8 subjects,
performed the experiment on distantly placed computers. The physical
isolation-condition experiment, instead, took place in a laboratory,
where the participants were alone with a maximum of three

Table 2
Physical Isolation versus group conditions.

Condition Frequency Percentage

Physical Isolation [PI(1)] 120 66.3
Group Condition [PI(0)] 61 33.7
Total 181 100

Table 3
Anonymity versus Nonymity conditions.

Condition Frequency Percentage

Anonymity [FA (1)] 88 48.6
Nonymity [FA (0)] 93 51.4
Total 181 100

S. Coppolino Perfumi et al. Computers in Human Behavior 92 (2019) 230–237

233

experimenters. Every participant was given an ID code that needed to
be reported in all the three experimental phases. The first phase con-
sisted in the filling of the scales that took approximately 15min. When
completed, the participants could start the experiment, which took
approximately 50min to be completed. The first task was Asch’s, the
second the cultural and the third the apperceptive, and each phase was
introduced by means of an informational page with instructions. The
last phase consisted in the filling of the post-experimental ques-
tionnaire, and this phase lasted 10min circa. When finished, the sub-
jects were informed on the real purposes of the study and were told not
to divulge details on the experiment, in order to avoid potential biases
from the other experimental subjects.

3. Results

Fig. 3 shows the different percentage of conformity in each task. In
Asch’s task, the one used to test normative influence 1,4% of the sub-
jects conformed to the majority when it gave a clearly incorrect answer.
Conformity percentages grow significantly in the cultural task, with
15,2% of subjects conforming and the highest rate is registered in the
apperceptive task, with 29,8% of conformity.

Both the cultural and the apperceptive tasks were used to test in-
formational influence and more insights on the effects of this type of
influence can be obtained by observing the results concerning entropy.
Conformity increased significantly with higher entropy, thus with more
ambiguous items (Table 4).

Since the tasks have always been presented in the same order (Asch
first, then cultural and finally apperceptive), we conducted some ana-
lysis in order to verify if any eventual learning mechanisms could have
occurred and invalidated the trustworthiness of conformity data. The

only interaction appeared between conformity and entropy but once
controlled the entropy effect, no significant learning mechanism ap-
peared, besides a slight negative effect of time on the cultural task. To
analyze the relationship between conformity, physical condition,
anonymity and personality traits, we used Generalized Linear Mixed
Models, the size effect of which results to be 77%. From the model,
emerged that conformity takes place differently whether subjects are
physically isolated, anonymous or in both conditions happening at the
same time (deindividuated). Full anonymity and physical isolation
analyzed singularly have a positive relationship with conformity, but if
these two variables interact (creating deindividuation), the relationship
becomes negative (Table 4). This analysis also provided results re-
garding the effects of personality traits, in particular, Neuroticism,
Surgency (i.e., Extraversion), Agreeableness, Closeness, Self-Efficacy
and State and Trait Anxiety.

The factors that result to be positively related to conformity are
Closeness, Self-Efficacy and State Anxiety. The traits that are negatively
related to conformity, are Neuroticism, Surgency, Agreeableness.

4. General discussion and conclusions

The results of this study could help to explain the dynamics that can
occur in online environments, where the different available platforms
allow the users to interact under different levels of anonymity, and with
known and unknown people. We found an almost non-existent effect of
normative influence when social identity is not strengthened, with only
1.4% of the subjects conforming to Asch’s task.

In our experiment, group saliency was minimal due to anonymity,
the impossibility to communicate with the other members, and the
absence of any type of information exchange (except fictional name and

Fig. 1. Example of cultural and apperceptive items. In
figure are shown three different examples of the stimuli
adopted in the experiment. In the first row there are two
examples of cultural items: in the first rectangle the primer
is associated with three options, among which one is more
semantically related than the others (low entropy), the
second example present three untied options (high entropy).
In the second row we can find two types of apperceptive
stimuli with invented words both for the primer and the
answer options.

Fig. 2. Screenshot representing the interface on which the subjects performed the experiment in the nonymity condition.

S. Coppolino Perfumi et al. Computers in Human Behavior 92 (2019) 230–237

234

surnames in the nonymity condition) concerning the group members.
Furthermore, the subject did not engage in any type of cooperative task
before the experiment, a method often used to enhance group saliency
(Postmes et al., 2001).

Thus, we confirm the existing literature on deindividuation
(Postmes et al., 2001), showing that deindividuation alone is an in-
hibitory factor for normative influence in online environments.

On the other side, when the focus is on obtaining information and
the subjects’ knowledge on a topic lacks because the task is particularly
difficult or ambiguous, even unknown users can be considered a reli-
able source, even when deprived of cues about their actual level of
knowledge. In fact, from our analysis, emerged that the strongest pre-
dictor of conformity is task ambiguity: entropy resulted to have a sig-
nificant positive effect on conformity. In the case of the present study,
entropy was modulated both within and in-between tasks, and we

registered a 15.2% of conformity in the cultural task, and a 29.8% in
the apperceptive, the most ambiguous task.

These results confirm other studies (Rosander & Eriksson, 2012)
that show the effectiveness of informational influence also in online
environments. However, new evidence emerged from the present study,
showing that two contextual characteristics can actually affect in a
complex way the effects of informational influence: full anonymity,
physical isolation, as well as their interaction (i.e., deindividuation).
Anonymity and physical isolation taken separately have a positive ef-
fect on conformity, confuting the “mere presence-effect” hypothesis, at
least in this case (Markus, 1978), but if combined, thus creating a
deindividuation state, they actually reduce conformity. In this way, we
can say that deindividuation has an inhibitory effect not only on nor-
mative influence, as theorized by the SIDE Model (Postmes et al., 2001),
but also on informational influence within CMC. These results provide
us interesting insights on the environmental and psychological elements
that can affect information-seeking behavior in online environments.
The large amount of information available on the Internet, combined
with online social dynamics often lead users not to verify the credibility
of sources, and the present study provides new insights that show that if
users are deindividuated, their tendency to trust unknown sources of
information is minor. This result has two potential implications, a so-
cially-related one and an exposure-related one. The first one is related
to the fact that such result suggests that in order to trust random in-
formation, the underlying social dynamics, namely, the perceived im-
portance and/or trust towards who is supporting such information is
crucial.

As the deindividuation perspective presented by the SIDE Model
suggests, if there is no social identification with the group members, the
effects of social influence will reduce and according to these results, this
could happen also when the push towards conformity is not strictly
related to a compliance with social norms, but rather to a need for
information.

Future research could deepen this result, for example by focusing on
the relationship between the spread of misinformation in social net-
works and informational influence, deepening how social dynamics
underlie this process, to what extent they influence information

Fig. 3. Percentages of conformity in Asch, Cultural and Apperceptive tasks and Entropy’s quadratic plot.

Table 4
Generalized Linear Mixed Model. Model’s Size Effects: 66%. ∗∗∗=p < 0.001, ∗∗=p < 0.01, ∗=p < 0.05. The variables included in the model are en- tropy, anonymity, physical isolation, Neuroticism, Surgency, Agreeableness, Closeness, Self- Efficacy and state anxiety.

GLMM Best Model

Model precision Akaike∗ F Df-1 (2)

81.5% 9396.12 67.67∗∗∗ 12 (9116)

Parameter Fixed effect (F) Coefficient St. Error Student t

Entropy 672, 98∗∗∗ 8, 714 0,34 25, 94∗∗∗

Full anonymity 23, 11∗∗∗ 2, 416 0,46 5, 31∗∗∗

Physical isolation 10, 71∗∗∗ 0, 474 0,09 5, 78∗∗∗

Neuroticism 7, 38∗∗ −0, 027 0,01 −2, 72∗∗

Surgency 7, 07∗∗ −0, 032 0,01 −2, 66∗∗

Agreeableness 23, 18∗∗∗ −0, 042 0,01 −4, 81∗∗∗

Closeness 6, 79∗∗ 0, 022 0,01 2, 61∗∗

Self-efficacy 24, 09∗∗∗ 0, 046 0,01 4, 91∗∗∗

STAI-State 9, 97∗∗∗ 0, 017 0,01 3, 16∗∗∗

FA (1)∗PI(1) 24, 94∗∗∗ −0, 574 0,12 −4, 99∗∗∗

S. Coppolino Perfumi et al. Computers in Human Behavior 92 (2019) 230–237

235

acceptance, and whether other contextual factors can affect this pro-
cess, since this phenomenon is having a strong political and social
impact.

The second implication is related to the subjects’ feeling of exposure:
if they perceive that there is no way to identify them, as they are both
anonymous and physically isolated, they are more prone to disregard
the opinions they are exposed to.

Future research could investigate, for example, whether this hap-
pens because subjects try to provide their own judgment, because they
engage in explicit non-conformist behavior, or because they do not put
too much effort in completing the task.

Finally, for what concerns the effects of personality traits, the ones
which resulted to have an inhibitory effect on conformity are
Neuroticism, Surgency (i.e., Extraversion) and Agreeableness, in line
with the existing literature (DeYoung et al., 2002), while subjects with
higher scores in Closeness, Self-Efficacy and State Anxiety conformed
more.

These results however predict a small portion of the general ten-
dency to conform, so further studies are necessary to understand the
entity of the impact of personality traits on conformity and its pre-
dictability.

In line with the theoretical framework, the previous result could
support the literature stressing how personality changes when users are
online (Kim & Sherman, 2007).

Within such a background, any type of personality assessment re-
ferring to real-life personality traits could explain only a small portion
of online behavior variance, and not fit with the purpose. Future re-
search could develop new models of web-personality assessment tools
in order to measure the impact of “online personality” on social influ-
ence and conformity.

Furthermore, the study presented here has some limitations that
could be controlled in further research on the topic.

As mentioned while describing the sample, we have not been able to
balance the subjects according to genders and we have an over-
representation of people identifying as females. The more dated lit-
erature that explored the gender differences in conformist behaviors
registered higher conformity in the females (Baumeister & Sommer,
1997), while more recent studies found no differences (Rosander &
Eriksson, 2012). This could be due by the increasing push towards
gender equality which resulted in a less strict adherence to the tradi-
tional division between gender roles that especially western societies
(those in which the aforementioned studies were conducted) have ex-
perienced throughout the years.

Another limitation regards the diversity of the pool of participants.
For linguistic reasons related to the semantic nature of two of the

three tasks, the participants had to be fluent in Italian, and this resulted
in having mostly Italians taking part to the experiment, who, in the
nonymity condition, interacted with bots to which were given Italian-
sounding names and surnames.

We believe that these results can be generalized to other contexts
and similar countries, but we must consider that cultural differences
shaping the behavior in different ways may appear if the study is re-
plicated elsewhere.

First and foremost, according to the literature, the perception to-
wards conformity is different in individualistic and collectivistic cul-
tures, where in the former it is a negatively connoted behavior, while in
the latter it is generally seen more positively (Bond & Smith, 1996),
therefore, with a broader pool of participants, different patterns might
emerge.

In addition, according to the context, the level of contact with
people having different backgrounds, and the potential prejudices or
negative attitudes towards some social groups that the experimental
subjects might present, there could be different levels of identification
with the group members, if more information that indicates diversity is
given to the participants. This factor could be interesting to control and
analyze in further studies.

In the same way, at a broader level, the multiculturalism, general
openness, political and social situation of the context could also affect
the subjects’ behavior in relation to the building of in-group and out-
group perception towards the group members.

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  • Deindividuation effects on normative and informational social influence within computer-mediated-communication
  • Introduction
    Theoretical framework
    Overview and predictions
    Method
    Sampling and participants
    Materials and apparatus
    Procedure
    Results
    General discussion and conclusions
    References

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