Defer, disagree, or disengage? Relational mobility, self-changeability, culture, and responses to inconsistency

Abstract

Past research has found that people often engage in one of three behaviours to resolve inconsistencies with others: validation, conforming, or distancing. While much of the social influence literature has assessed contexts in which conformity is more or less likely, little has explored alternatives to conformity, such as validation and distancing. The present research as aims to assess what underlying factors that affect these preferences. We used vignettes of inconsistency in relational contexts to assess people’s preferred responses. In Study 1, we assessed Canadian participants’ preferences responses following social inconsistency. We found that more perceived self-changeability increased preference for conformity and decreased preference for validation and distancing, while more perceived relational mobility increased preference for distancing and decreased preference for conformity and validation. In Study 2 we assessed how these behaviours may vary culturally. We found that compared to Canadians, Koreans expressed greater preference for conformity and less preference for validation. The patterns of results for perceived changeability and mobility were largely the same across Canadian and Korean, with Koreans demonstrating similar or smaller effects. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.