Frequency of Behavior Witnessed and Conformity in an Everyday Social Context

Abstract

Conformity is thought to be an important force in human evolution because it has the potential to stabilize cultural homogeneity within groups and cultural diversity between groups. However, the effects of such conformity on cultural and biological evolution will depend much on the particular way in which individuals are influenced by the frequency of alternative behavioral options they witness. In a previous study we found that in a natural situation people displayed a tendency to be ‘linear-conformist’. When visitors to a Zoo exhibit were invited to write or draw answers to questions on cards to win a small prize and we manipulated the proportion of text versus drawings on display, we found a strong and significant effect of the proportion of text displayed on the proportion of text in the answers, a conformist effect that was largely linear with a small non-linear component. However, although this overall effect is important to understand cultural evolution, it might mask a greater diversity of behavioral responses shaped by variables such as age, sex, social environment and attention of the participants. Accordingly we performed a further study explicitly to analyze the effects of these variables, together with the quality of the information participants' responses made available to further visitors. Results again showed a largely linear conformity effect that varied little with the variables analyzed.

Conformity cannot be identified based on population-level signatures

“…refs 10,11,34,39 and 40), we wonder whether we have, at the moment, strong support for the existence of conformist transmission at all. The conjecture that conformist bias as individual-level mechanism might not play an important role in the real lives of individuals is supported by recent critiques on the most promising accounts of conformity in non-human animals.…”

“…32; or “text” vs. “drawings” for humans in refs 33 and 34). Moreover, content biases may coincidentally arise as an effect of local/stimulus enhancement, for example when one of the variants becomes more conspicuous due to others’ actions leaving traces (e.g., if certain tools are left behind at a relevant location3536).…”

Conformity Scores Differentiate Older Hemodialyzed Patients and Patients with Continuous Peritoneal Dialysis

“…It has been studied for a long time [7–11]. Conformity may be either an unconscious influence or a direct pressure on the person to adopt certain values cherished by society or an attending physician.…”

“…It can be present even when a perceived authority figure is not physically present. The reason for conformity is a desire to achieve a sense of security within a group [9–11]. Otherwise, an individual risks rejection, which is a source of stress [10].…”

“…Otherwise, an individual risks rejection, which is a source of stress [10]. It is not surprising that there is a high level of pressure on patients to conform to the expectation of the medical personnel during dialysis [2,4,7,9,11]. After all, members of the medical staff are the gatekeepers of a life-saving therapy.…”