Involvement and Group Effects on Opinion Change

Effects of group variance and advocated position on conformity1

“…

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

…”

“…The conchtions affecting complexity preferences were reasoned to be a function of mstruc^ional set providmg a context withm which evaluabon of the group's opimons occurred Thus, when a person judges stimuli which can be empmcally vahdated, as m the case of weight estimates (Rule, 1964) or decision outcomes (Rule and Renner, 1965), others' opmions are not valued because the best responses can be determined by means other than personal opmions The actual weight of an object can be determmed empmcally, and decisions involve outcomes whose gain or loss value can be assessed directly In support of this assumption, Naylor (1964) found that persons prefer mformation sources with less vanance m a decision task Where empincal vahdation IS hkely, vanancje preference is not ehcited, and less vanance should be effective m mducmg change However, when a person responds to stimuli which can be socially vahdated, as m the case of opinion matters (Rule & Renner, 1968), mformation about others'opmions is relevant Matters of opmion or attitudes for an adult are confirmed by his relevant peers, and cx>mpanson with others' views provides information regardmg acceptable hmits (Festmger, 1954) Because greater vanance gives information on the range of opmions, it should be preferred, thereby enhancmg conformity To examme these possibilities m the present study, subjects were exposed to four group members' opinions which differed m variance of agreement on neutral issues To mampulate the basis for judgments, instructions either mchcated that the task was one which was bemg used to establish norms (social validation) or that the task was one on which norms had been estabhshed (empmcal validation) It was expected that social validation conditions enhance conformity when vanance of others' opimons is greater, whereas empincal validation conditions enhance conformity when vanance of others' opmions is less.…”