Going along versus going alone: When fundamental motives facilitate strategic (non)conformity

Conformity of responses among graduate students in an online environment

“…In an earlier research on conformity, Asch (1956) varied the number of confederates to show that fewer or more than three yielded low rates of conformity (Bond & Smith, 1996;Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini & Kenrick, 2006;Milgram, Bickman & Berkowitz, 1969). Also, the sequence of two confederates responding before the participant, followed by the last confederate may be an important characteristic of the experimental design as it creates pressure for the participant to respond consistently with both of the first two confederates as well as to try to anticipate the response that the last confederate may report (Asch, 1956;Tesser, Campbell & Mickler, 1983).…”

Beauty against tobacco control: viewing photos of attractive women may induce a mating mindset, leading to reduced self-control over smoking among male smokers

“…Our findings not only supplement the literature on the relationship between self-control and impulse control (e.g., Kahan, Polivy, & Herman, 2003;Muraven, Collins, & Nienhaus, 2002;Vohs & Heatherton, 2000;West, 2001) but also suggest that mating motivation may interfere with the self-regulation of smoking. Third, prior research has shown that a mating motivation activated by exposure to attractive opposite-sex photographs or sexual or romantic scenarios may induce males, but not females, to exhibit a variety of masculinity-related behaviors, such as acting in nonconforming ways (Griskevicius et al, 2006), donating more generously (Iredale et al, 2008), acting aggressively (Chang et al, 2011;Griskevicius et al, 2009;Mussweiler & Förster, 2000), attending more to money (Roney, 2003), and performing risk-taking behaviors (Baker & Maner, 2008;Pawlowski, Atwal, & Dunbar, 2008). Tobacco advertisements have traditionally promoted smoking as a masculine display (Starr, 1984), and previous studies have demonstrated the connection between masculinity and smoking (Pachankis, Westmaas, & Dougherty, 2011;Seltzer, 1959).…”

“…Recent research has demonstrated that induced mating motives may elicit a variety of behaviors in men, including devoting more attention to money (Roney, 2003), failing to conform (Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006), spending conspicuously (Griskevicius et al, 2007), playing risky blackjack hands (Baker & Maner, 2008), donating more generously (Iredale, Van Vugt, & Dunbar, 2008), and being more likely to endorse statements supporting war on a questionnaire (Chang, Lu, Li, & Li, 2011). The current research focused on smokers with intentions to quit or reduce smoking, because these individuals encounter a self-control conflict in which the distal and proximal motivations press for opposing behaviors.…”

Fear Attenuated and Affection Augmented: Male Self-Presentation in a Romantic Context

“…Females present themselves as faithful when they want a long-term relationship (Dosmukhambetova and Manstead 2011); they eat less in order to appear more feminine (Mori et al 1987); they help more in order to appear more generous (Griskevicius et al 2007); and they even become more creative (Griskevicius et al 2006a). Males, on the other hand, describe themselves as more ambitious and report placing greater importance on financial success (Roney 2003); they are more likely to go against the crowd (Griskevicius et al 2006b); and they, too, become more creative (Griskevicius et al 2006a). …”