《社会心理学》课程教学资源（文献资料）conformity——On the Social Influence of Emotions in Groups - Interpersonal Effects of Anger and Happiness on Conformity Versus Deviance.pdf_P6-P8

with the idea that feeling rejected can prompt people to seek belonging in a different group, Williams et al. (2000) showed that people, after having been ignored by two other participants in a virtual ball-throwing game, conformed more to the unanimously incorrect decisions of an alternative group. Yet, if there is no viable alternative to the current group, we predicted that people would feel pressured to conform to their current group, as there is no other way to restore their sense of belonging. Based on these considerations, in Study 2 we aimed to investigate whether emotions expressed by a majority influence the choice between conforming to the current group and leaving the group. For this purpose, the scenario from Study 1 was modified to manipulate the availability of alternative groups in addition to the emotion expressed by the majority. We hypothesized that this choice would depend on the availability of alternatives: If alternatives are available, the likelihood of exiting the group should be higher for people who receive an angry reaction (and therefore feel rejected) than for people who receive a happy reaction (and therefore feel accepted). When no alternatives are available, people should choose to remain in the group, regardless of whether they feel rejected. A further aim was to find out whether any influence of perceived majority emotions on behavior would be mediated by felt acceptance and rejection. Method Participants. Seventy-three participants (18 men, Mage 21.04, range 18 – 44 years) were recruited for the experiment in exchange for 7 euro or partial course credits. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the conditions of a 2 (alternatives available: yes or no) 2 (majority emotion: anger or happiness) between-subjects design. Materials and procedure. Vignette. The vignette was adapted from the one used in Study 1. In this version, the introduction explained that the protagonist had just started studying in a different city, where he or she hardly knew anyone. We manipulated the availability of alternatives by then including in the story either the statement “You hardly know anyone in your new study group, and you haven’t met any fellow students that you like so much that you’d like to go on vacation with them” (no alternatives condition) or the statement “You have met some fellow students whom you like, and when you were recently discussing vacations, you had the impression that everyone would be interested in going on vacation together” (alternatives condition). The story then continued as in Study 1. Acceptance/rejection scale. We used the same four-item scale as in Study 1 (Cronbach’s .89). Conforming versus leaving the group. Participants were asked to choose between two alternatives: (a) conforming to the group, while abandoning one’s own destination (“Abide by the majority”), or (b) attempting to find other people to go on vacation with (“Go on vacation with others”). These options were presented as two buttons on the screen, forcing a choice between these alternatives. Manipulation checks. The manipulation of the availability of alternatives was checked with three items (e.g., “Except for my friends from high school, there is nobody I could go on vacation with,” rated from 1 strongly disagree to 7 strongly agree; Cronbach’s .82). Two more items checked to which extent the group had reacted with happiness and anger to their proposal (rated from 1 not at all to 7 very much). Results Manipulation checks. As intended, participants reported having received a more angry reaction when the reaction had been described as angry (M 5.50, SD 1.31) compared with when it had been described as happy (M 2.15, SD 1.31), 0.73, t(71) 9.12, R2 .54, p .001 (one-tailed). Similarly, participants indicated that the reaction had been more happy after the reaction had been described as happy (M 4.44, SD 1.17) as opposed to angry (M 1.94, SD 1.04), 0.75, t(71) 9.58, R2 .56, p .001 (one-tailed). Finally, participants indicated that there were more alternative groups that they could go on vacation with in the alternatives condition (M 5.98, SD 0.76) than in the no alternatives condition (M 4.30, SD 1.73), 1.06, t(71) 5.30, R2 .28, p .001 (one-tailed). None of the manipulations affected the check for the other manipulation, and no interactions were found on any of the manipulation checks. Thus, the manipulations were successful. Acceptance/rejection. As in Study 1, participants felt more rejected after the majority had expressed anger (M 4.99, SD 1.02) than after the majority had expressed happiness (M 2.85, SD 1.01), 0.73, t(71) 8.99, R2 .53, p .001 (one-tailed). There were no main or interaction effects involving alternatives. Conforming versus leaving the group. As can be seen from Figure 2, the choice between conforming to the group or leaving the group depended on both the availability of alternatives and the emotion expressed by the majority. Using probit regression,2 the choice between conforming and leaving the group was regressed on the manipulations. As expected, the interaction was significant, B 1.76, Wald’s z 2.68, p .004 (one-tailed). To interpret this interaction, we calculated simple slopes of the majority emotion manipulation within the alternatives and no alternatives conditions (Aiken, West, & Reno, 1991). As expected, if an alternative group was available, fewer participants chose conformity after an angry reaction (six out of 16, or 37.50%) than after a happy reaction (16 out of 19, or 84.21%), B 1.32, Wald’s z 2.80, p .003 (one-tailed). When no alternative group was available, the emotions expressed by the majority did not affect the choice between conformity and leaving the group (anger: 15 out of 18, or 83.33%; happiness: 14 out of 20, or 70.00%), B 0.44, Wald’s z 0.97, p .33. Thus, when no alternatives were available, participants generally preferred staying in the group even if that meant yielding to the majority’s position, but when alternatives were available, anger expressed by a majority increased the chance that participants would prefer to leave the group. Mediation analysis. To investigate whether feeling rejected after an angry reaction could explain the choice between conforming and leaving the group, depending on the availability of alternatives, we conducted a moderated mediation analysis (Preacher et al., 2007). A moderated mediation analysis estimates the strength of the indirect effect of an independent variable on a dependent 2 With the logit instead of the probit link function used for these analyses, the reported p values are virtually identical (deviations in the .005–.01 range in both directions). The interpretation does not change. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. ON THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF EMOTIONS IN GROUPS 267

variable through a mediator separately at different values of the moderator. The choice between conforming (0) or leaving the group (a) was the dependent variable and was specified so that higher coefficients of the predictor variables indicate a higher likelihood of leaving the group relative to conforming.3 The emotion manipulation served as the independent variable, perceived rejection as the mediator, and we used availability of alternatives as the moderator of the path from feeling rejected to the choice between conforming or leaving the group (see Figure 1 for the general model that was tested). The significance of the indirect effects was determined by bootstrapping (10,000 resamples in total). Calculating a coefficient estimate based on the likelihood of one response category over another in case one of the cells in the design is empty is, in effect, a division by zero, which yields coefficient estimates that approach infinity. As such estimates are obviously incorrect, resamples of the data set with empty cells were dropped from the distribution of indirect effects. The estimates are therefore based on the remaining resamples (R 9,067). In this and all remaining mediation analyses, both 95% biascorrected and accelerated (BCa; Efron, 1987) confidence intervals and nonparametric p values are reported. These p values are based on the proportion of the distribution of indirect effects on either side of 0 (indicating no mediation) and are therefore uncorrected. The results of the analysis indicated moderated mediation. When no alternatives were available, 0 was enclosed in the confidence interval of the indirect effect, indicating that any effects of the majority emotion manipulation on the choice between conforming and leaving the group were not mediated by felt acceptance/rejection, 0.21, 95% BCa confidence interval (CI) [1.27, 0.81], p .74 (one-tailed). When alternatives were available, however, 0 fell outside the confidence interval of the indirect effect, indicating that the choice between conforming and leaving the group was mediated by feeling accepted versus rejected due to the majority’s emotions, 1.09, 95% BCa CI: [lower limit: 0.31],4 p .002 (one-tailed). It can be concluded that although all participants felt more rejected after an angry reaction, this only led them to leave the group if an alternative group was available. When no alternatives were available, feeling rejected did not affect the choice between conforming and leaving the group. Discussion In this study, we replicated the finding that a deviant who receives an angry reaction from a majority feels more rejected than a deviant individual who receives a happy reaction. Furthermore, we showed that the availability of alternatives determines whether this person stays in the group or leaves after receiving an angry reaction. When no alternatives to the current group are available, showing good group membership by conforming is the likely option as this helps resolve the threat to belonging when experiencing feelings of rejection. If membership in an alternative group is available, the deviant is likely to leave the group after an angry reaction. Happiness, on the other hand, leads to feeling accepted, which appears to keep people committed to the group. After a happy reaction, participants in this study almost invariably chose conformity over leaving the group. As conformity was contrasted with leaving the group, the preference for conformity after a happy reaction may reflect a heightened desire to remain in the group, rather than a desire to regain acceptance. Based on this research, we cannot determine which of these explanations can account for the behavior of participants who received a happy reaction. Therefore, in the last three studies, we employed measures of conformity that were independent of the choice between staying in the group or not. Additionally, we switched to different paradigms to overcome the limitations of the vignette paradigm, which taps into naïve theories about the effects of emotions (cf. Parkinson & Manstead, 1993) and may therefore produce slightly different results than actual reactions to emotions that surface in reaction to deviance in groups. Thus, in the last three experiments, we used more realistic settings to test how a majority’s angry and happy reactions to deviance shape conformity. Study 3 In this study, we investigated in which situations the majority’s emotional expressions can pressure deviant individuals to conform by inducing feelings of acceptance versus rejection. As argued in the Introduction, whether feeling rejected leads to conformity critically depends on the extent to which conformity is a meaningful way of showing that one is a good group member. In cooperative settings, coordinated action is required for groups to achieve their shared goals, and deviance may threaten effective goal pursuit. This implies that especially in cooperative settings, good group membership may be communicated by showing commitment to the group’s goals and a willingness to conform to further the group’s interests (Cialdini & Trost, 1998; Dirks, 1999; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). In line with this reasoning, previous research has indicated that conformity is indeed more likely to the extent that (positive) interdependency (i.e., cooperativeness) is perceived among the group members (Berkowitz, 1957). We therefore proposed that feeling rejected makes people 3 For this analysis, R was programmed according to Preacher et al.’s (2007) recommendations and checked in personal communication with Andrew F. Hayes (May 2011). 4 This notation indicates a one-sided confidence interval that is used to test a directional hypothesis. The notation [lower limit: X] indicates that there is a 95% confidence that the test statistic falls between X and positive infinity. If the hypothesis predicts a positive relation, and X is greater than zero, the hypothesis is supported. 0 20 40 60 80 100 No Alternatives Alternatives Available % choosing leaving the group over conformity Majority Emotion Happiness Anger Figure 2. Proportion of participants choosing leaving the group over conforming (Study 2). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 268 HEERDINK, VAN KLEEF, HOMAN, AND FISCHER

conform in situations they perceive as cooperative, but not in situations that are perceived as competitive. We expected that when a deviant individual perceived the situation as cooperative, this person would feel pressure to conform in case the majority reacts with anger to their deviance. In competitive settings, on the other hand, an individual cannot show commitment to a group goal by conforming, as there are conflicting goals in the group. The majority’s anger may even signal that the individual is reaching his or her goals at the expense of the pursuit of other people’s goals (Lanzetta & Englis, 1989), which may motivate him or her to stay the course. Thus, we expected that a deviant individual would be less likely to feel the pressure to conform if the majority responded with anger in a situation that this person perceived as competitive. We investigated the role of the perceived cooperativeness of the situation by asking participants to recall a situation in which their opinion had differed from that of other group members. They were then asked to report the emotions expressed by the majority and to reflect on the type of situation in terms of cooperation/competition. Conformity was measured by asking people to which extent they experienced a pressure to conform in the situation. We preferred this measure over asking participants whether they actually conformed, because people are generally reluctant to overtly admit their conformity to a group. For instance, Asch’s (1956) participants blamed their conformity on their own vision, rather than on the group pressure experienced during the experiment. Furthermore, there is evidence that people distort their memories of an act of conformity to make it appear as though they initially agreed (Griffin & Buehler, 1993). We assumed that this pressure to conform would reflect the subjective experience of threat or anxiety (Berns, Capra, Moore, & Noussair, 2010) that is ultimately resolved by conforming to the group and that it would therefore be a good proxy of conformity in the situation. Finally, we tested whether any effects of majority emotions on conformity pressure were mediated by perceived rejection. Method Participants. Sixty-eight participants were recruited for a study on disagreement in groups. Four participants indicated that they were unable to recall and describe an incident in which their opinion had differed from a group’s consensus, and their data could therefore not be used. The final sample consisted of 18 male and 46 female participants (Mage 22.11, range 18 –50 years). They were compensated with course credits or 7 euro. Materials and procedure. Critical incident prompt. Upon arriving in the laboratory, participants were seated individually behind a computer, which was used for presenting all instructions and recording answers. After completing a number of unrelated personality measures, the critical incident prompt was displayed on screen. Participants were asked to recall an episode in which a group decision had to be made, and their opinion had differed from that of the group. They were asked to describe as many details of the situation as they could. Acceptance/rejection. After participants had described the situation, the experiment continued with the display of a prompt asking the participant to indicate on a bipolar 7-point scale (from 1 rejected to 7 accepted) how they had felt in the situation they just described. The scale was reversed for use in the analyses, such that higher scores indicate stronger feelings of rejection. Majority emotions. The emotions expressed by the majority were measured using a list of 26 affective states.5 The items were presented in random order, and the participant was asked to indicate on 7-point scales (from 1 not at all to 7 very much) how much of the respective emotion had been shown by the majority. An initial attempt to reduce the number of emotions measured by this questionnaire using principal factor analysis showed that the factor structure was highly dependent on which items were included in the analysis. Therefore, we restricted our analysis to the six items related to happiness and anger, which were two clusters that emerged consistently in all factor analyses. Both the point of inflexion in the scree plot and Kaiser’s criterion agreed on two as the optimal number of factors. Focusing on these two factors, maximum likelihood factor analysis using varimax rotation resulted in a clear distinction between enthusiasm, happiness, contentment, and amusement on the one hand and anger and irritation on the other (see Table 1). The first factor was labeled as happiness (Cronbach’s .83), and the second as anger (r .70, p .001). The emotion clusters were aggregated by averaging. Cooperativeness. Perceived cooperativeness of the situation was measured using three items. Two of these items (“To what extent did you pursue personal goals that differed from the group’s goals,” and “To what extent did your goals conflict with the group’s goals,” both reverse coded) asked about the goal structure without directly referring to cooperation and competition and were answered on 7-point scales (from 1 not at all to 7 very much). A third item directly asked how cooperative or competitive the situation had been on a bipolar 5-point scale (1 competitive, 3 neutral, and 5 cooperative). The scale composed of these items was internally consistent (Cronbach’s .68), and the average of these items was calculated after z-transforming the individual items to correct for the different response scales. Conformity pressure. At the end of the experiment, we asked participants to what extent they had felt pressure to change their opinion or behavior in line with the group (from 1 none at all to 7 very much). Results Only four of the 68 participants were unable to recall an instance in which their opinion had differed from the majority’s, which suggests that the kind of situation under investigation is quite common. We found that a broad variety of situations was reported. Overall, many situations resembled the situation that we described in the vignettes used in Studies 1 and 2. To give an impression of the kind of stories that our participants wrote, we give two examples here: We wanted to buy a car to go on vacation with. I wanted a somewhat more expensive car, so we could sell it for more or less the same value after our vacation. I also liked the luxury and comfort of a better car. And the risk of a car breakdown would be smaller as well. The others wanted a cheap car though, so we wouldn’t have to worry about 5 The full list is jealousy, disappointment, shock, suspicion, disgust, tense, anger, boredom, contempt, sorry, guilt, nervousness, enthusiasm, happiness, surprise, compassion, relaxation, contentment, fear, relief, irritation, shame, amusement, schadenfreude, indifference, and interest. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. ON THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF EMOTIONS IN GROUPS 269