Effects of group variance and advocated position on conformity1

Abstract

Levy (1964Levy ( , 1967 has proposed an information-processing model for explammg group impression formation He suggests that persons form their impressions of groups by regardmg a given array of mformabon as representmg a sample of the total possible mformation constitutmg the stimulus One scMirce of mformation is the vanance of the dimensions constitutmg the stimulus To study the effects of vanance on reactions to a group. Levy (1964) asked subjects to mdicate their preferences for one of two groups, each of which was represented by a set of five facial photographs The mchvidual members of the sets were scaled on vanous chmensions but differed m vanance Levy found that subjects chose sets wilh a higher vanance when both sets had high, favorable values, whereas no vanance preference appeared when the sets had moderate or low favorability values Rule and Renner (1968) extrapolated from Levy's notions m their attempt to account for mconsistent results of the effects of group vanance on conformity In their studies (Rule, 1964, Rule and Renner, 1965, Rule and Renner, 1968 subjects were exposed to the alleged opmions of four other group members, and change m the direction of the group opmion was measured The distnbution of gronp responses vaned m terms of chspersion Rule (1964) and Rule and Renner (1965) demonstrated that subject conformed more to groups whose members' judgments were less dispersed, whereas Rule and Renner (1968) found that subjects conformed more to groups whose members' judgments were more dispersed These authors proposed that the mconsistent results 1 This research is a partial summary of a tiiesis submitted to the Department of Psychology m partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree by the semor author, under the direction of the second author