ABSTRACT

PERSONALITY AND CONFORMITY

The present study examined the moderating role of personality in a social situation modeled after Solomon Asch’s classic line judgment paradigm. Participants indicated their willingness to engage in hypothetical risky behaviors, either while alone or while surrounded by confederates who verbally expressed high willingness for risk. Personality was measured according to the Five Factor Model, using the NEO-PI-R. In the presence of risk-advocating confederates, participants’ risk-willingness ratings elevated greatly, indicating a strong conformity effect. However, the effect of confederate influence to elicit conformity did not vary as a function of personality. Accordingly, results did not evince personality moderation of conforming risk-willingness ratings, and instead supported a situationist perspective according to which situational forces influenced behavior regardless of individual differences. The impactful nature of expressing behavioral intentions for risk may have constrained the influence of personality in the present paradigm.

Spencer V. Irish August 2016

PERSONALITY AND CONFORMITY

by Spencer V. Irish

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology in the College of Science and Mathematics California State University, Fresno August 2016 APPROVED For the Department of Psychology:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Spencer V. Irish Thesis Author

Spee Kosloff (Chair) Psychology

Paul Price Psychology

Robert Levine Psychology

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Spee Kosloff, for elevating my abilities as a researcher. Thank you for your guidance and support. I would also like to thank my committee members Dr. Paul Price and Dr. Robert Levine for their assistance and insight during the past three years. Next I would like to thank my esteemed research team, without whom this research could not have been possible. Thank you for dedicating so many long hours to running participants and upholding such strenuous research practices. While over forty students were involved in the data collection process, I would like to thank Kyla Rankin, Leticia Rodriguez, and Makenzie Engle above all. Finally, I would like to thank my mother and father for their love and support during this process. I am also deeply grateful to my grandmother for supporting me in the pursuit of this goal. I could not have made it this far without each of you. And of course all of my friends, for commiserating and celebrating with me through every peak and valley. I would not have had the strength to persevere without each of you behind me. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

LIST OF TABLES ...... vi

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 3

History of Situationism and Interactionism in Social Psychology ...... 3

Personality Moderation of Classic Social Psychological Research ...... 10

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ...... 23

Pilot Test ...... 23

Main Study ...... 25

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS ...... 32

Results ...... 32

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ...... 38

Conclusion ...... 44

REFERENCES ...... 45 APPENDICES ...... 54 APPENDIX A: VIGNETTES ...... 55

APPENDIX B: PANAS ...... 63

APPENDIX C: MORNINGNESS AND EVENINGNESS SCALE...... 65

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1 Pilot Study: Mean Vignette Risk-Willingness Ratings and Correlations with Big 5 Domain Scores...... 26

Table 2 Scripted Confederate Risk-Willingness Ratings ...... 28 Table 3 Pairwise Comparisons (LSD) of Big 5 Domains across Levels of the Social Pressure Variable ...... 33 Table 4 Correlations between Risk-Willingness and Big 5 Domain Scores as a Function of Social Pressure and Public/Private Response Assessment...... 35 Table 5 Correlations (r) between Select Big 5 Facets and Public Risk- Willingness Ratings as a Function of Social Pressure ...... 37

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1. Lewin’s depiction of the forces acting upon a marriage (Lewin, 1951, p. 99)...... 4 Figure 2. Statistical practices in personality and social psychological research (Tracy et al., 2009, p. 1214)...... 9 Figure 3. Diagram of seating arrangement for researcher (R), participant (P), and three confederates...... 29 Figure 4. Fisher’s (1959) “twisted pear” model of a heteroscedastic relationship, adapted by Berge and Raad (2001, p. 273) to characterize differential variability in trait-based behavioral expression (Y-axis) as a function of the restrictive (R) versus eliciting (E) nature of a situation (X-axis)...... 40

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Social psychology has historically focused on the power of situational forces to elicit changes in the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals. Emphases on main effects of situational factors have often overshadowed moderating influences of important individual difference variables, such as gender, culture, and personality, stressing the malleability of persons over their more consistent traits and tendencies (Orom & Cervone, 2009). This focus on transient environmental factors to which an individual is subjected (e.g., physical location, presence or absence of others, stimulus priming) attained its firmest articulation with the genesis of the “situationist” movement (Mischel, 1968). Situationism implies that changing contextual factors profoundly determine individual behavior, and thus by its very nature discounts influences from stable dispositional factors. From this perspective, the majority of individuals placed in a highly impactful social situation should generally exhibit a common response tendency (i.e., varying around a common average). It is assumed that such relatively uniform responses result not from trait-based commonalities between individuals tested, but rather due to external factors that impinge with common force and result upon all individuals tested. However, in the past several decades, orthodox situationism has become less prevalent and its limitations increasingly recognized (Krueger, 2009). Notable among relevant critiques is concern that seemingly poor predictive power of early personality assessments may have stemmed not from the relatively strong influence of situational factors, but rather from weaknesses in the reliability and validity of early personality assessment tools. Yet, many foundational findings in social psychology have not been extensively revisited to reconsider the potential 2 2 moderating role of personality (Gazzaniga & Heatherton, 2006). The present work seeks to do so in the context of a variant on one classic body of work on social influence: namely, Solomon Asch’s famous work on conformity (Asch, 1951, 1955, 1956). Asch’s research placed a naïve participant in a group of confederates. On each of 18 trials, the participant was asked to judge which among three lines matched to the length of a single target line. As the study progressed, the confederates began giving obviously incorrect answers, enabling Asch to measure the frequency with which participants caved to social pressure by conforming their responses to clearly inaccurate group opinions. In the present work, a modified Asch paradigm was employed in parallel with a well-validated personality assessment device in order to examine personality-based predictors of conformity (McCrae, & Costa, 2010). In doing so, this work has the potential to integrate contemporary social-personality psychology’s interactionist orientation (e.g., Furr, 2008) with classical social psychological findings, thereby shedding light on the complex combination of situational and dispositional factors that produce an important social influence phenomenon.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

History of Situationism and Interactionism in Social Psychology Kurt Lewin, one of the forefathers of social psychology, famously reasoned that individual behavior (B) is a function of both who a person is (P), and the contextual/environmental factors (E) they confront: B=f(P,E) (Lewin, 1936, 1943). This equation is derived from a branch of physics know as field theory. Field theory attempts to explain how an object will behave in a specific location given the external and internal vectors acting upon it (Landau & Lifchitz, 2004). Lewin maintained, “if one could identify, plot and establish the potency of the forces in a person’s life space, it would be possible…to understand why individuals, groups and even entire organizations act as they do” (1951, p. 99). Lewin used principles of field theory to devise the aforementioned formula and thereby predict behaviors of individuals or groups in specific environments. As Lewin’s formula suggests, trait-based influences on behavior may be amplified or inhibited by the context of one’s action. For example, a social context in which expectations for reserved behavior are particularly pronounced (e.g., a funeral ceremony) may reduce trait-based variability in outgoing behavior associated with extraversion. Although outgoingness is a characteristic the individual routinely expresses, the influence of the situation can impact its expression. Conversely, the extent to which an environment affects an individual will also vary as a function of that individual’s disposition. For instance, an individual who displays low levels of extroversion may express still lower levels of this trait when placed in a large group of strangers. The individual’s predilection for lower levels of external stimulation (e.g., smaller group interactions) influences the behavior displayed in the specific environment. In 4 4 short, the way an individual will behave in a specific situation is due, in part, to intrinsic factors the individual brings with them and environmental factors external to them. Based on this formulation, Lewin famously developed “fields of force” analysis: a system for visually depicting motivational factors or “forces” influencing an individual in a situation through the use of representational geometry (or “topological psychology”; Lewin, 1943). For instance, one such force field diagram (see Figure 1) depicted a husband and wife, and internal and environmental vectors of force acting upon the couple’s marriage.

Figure 1. Lewin’s depiction of the forces acting upon a marriage (Lewin, 1951, p. 99). 5 5

The central circle represents the space the husband and wife occupy together: the marriage space. If the environment (e.g., the home they live in or the social circles to which they belong) meets their needs, or is satisfying to the couple, it increases the forces pushing the couple together; however, if the environment is unstable it will intensify the forces pulling the couple apart. The larger oval space, in which the circle is enclosed, depicts intrinsic familial influences that each partner has brought into the marriage space (e.g., the husband witnessed his parents’ volatile marriage or the wife believes in ridged gender roles). These forces acting upon the couple, both external and intrinsic, represent the force field that determines whether the couple will stay together (Lewin, 1948). Lewin demonstrated how field theory could be used to quantify social situations and predict individual and group behavior, including child rearing, prejudice, and worker productivity (Lewin, 1951). For example, Lewin (1942) illustrated how a child is able to overcome his/her innate desire to play and socialize, and instead sit quietly and remain focused when in class. While the child naturally has little drive to sit quietly in a classroom for long periods of time, Lewin described the forces needed to ensure the behavior is carried out. Firstly, the child must be presented with a less desirable alternative to sitting quietly (e.g., being expelled). Secondly, appropriate barriers must be placed to remove alternative behavior, such as detention or calling their parents. Now the child is made to look upon the desired behavior as the least objectionable option. The child’s behavior can now be depicted as a flow toward the lowest-cost outcome presented to it (Lewin, 1942). This example shows that external factors present in the individual’s environment can inhibit the expression of even the most prevalent behaviors in the individual’s life. 6 6

Lewin’s model maintains a pervasive influence on many social psychologists today, particularly those dedicated to testing for statistical moderation of situational effects by individual difference factors, or person*situation interactions (e.g., Vansteelandt & Van Mechelen, 2004). However, in 1968, the field of social-personality psychology underwent an historic paradigm shift with the publication of Walter Mischel’s monograph, Personality and Assessment. Mischel sought to analyze the body of work developed based on Gordon Allport’s trait theory (1937). The aim of trait theory was to distill essential components of personality that govern individual behavior (Allport, 1937). Mischel (1968) observed that a “correlation between .20 and .30… is found persistently when virtually any personality dimension inferred from a questionnaire is related to almost any conceivable external criterion involving responses sampled in a different medium – that is, not by another questionnaire” (p. 78). He coined the term “personality coefficient” to illustrate this innate correlation between self-report personality measures and behavior. As such, Mischel condemned the use of these purportedly inefficient measures, contending that, though observable, the relationship between behavior and personality is too weak to be a significant factor in predicting an individual’s behavior (Mischel, 1968). Mischel instead postulated the environment most significantly predicts individual behavior, and thus environment, not personality, should be most closely examined. In the following decades, many social psychologists adopted this new “situationist” perspective on research. In sum, situationism refers to the Mischelian view that personality traits (with the 7 7 exception of intelligence) have little influence on behavior; rather, behavior is predominantly influenced by external situational factors (Mischel, 1968).1 Since the genesis of the situationist movement, there has been longstanding debate among social psychologist and personality psychologists regarding the proper balance of emphasis on the person, as opposed to the situation, in predicting behavior (e.g., Donnellan, Lucas, & Fleeson, 2009). Situationists critique the person-centered approach, stating that, by definition, personality constructs do not remain constant across all situations and thus cannot be used as reliable predictors of behavior. However, evidence has mounted against the strict situationist perspective (e.g., Block & Block, 2006; Craik, 1969; Funder & Ozer, 1983; McAdams & Pals, 2006; Roberts, 2005). Notably, Funder and Ozer (1983) proposed a “situation coefficient” based upon various effects in the social psychological literature (e.g., obedience, attitude change under forced compliance, bystander intervention) and observed that value to be only moderately larger (r = .45) than Mischel’s personality coefficient. Even Mischel, in light of the intervening decades of research, shifted away from his original strict situationist position: “to explain what people feel and think and do, we have to understand the

1 It is worth noting that not long after the publication of Personality & Assessment, Mischel studied delay of gratification in children, now more commonly referred to as the “marshmallow” study (Mischel & Mischel, 1983). Mischel place children in front of marshmallow and left the room, before leaving the child was told if they were able to wait until the experimenter returned they would be given a second marshmallow. This longitudinal research is widely known for its implications beyond self-control (e.g. SAT score, educational attainment, body mass index); these individual differences among children were found to be predictive of various life outcome measures 5, 10, and even 20 years later (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989). This line of research showed how a child’s ability to inhibit reward-behavior at an early age is indicative of its responses to future situations where similar skills may be required. This finding seemed at odds with the central message of Personality and Assessment, suggesting that the observed trait, delay of gratification, exerts profound influence throughout the child’s life despite the varied situations in which it attains expression (Mischel, 1968). 8 8 person-situation conjunction, rather than splitting it or trying to estimate which side of it accounts for more of the variance in behavior” (Mischel, 2009, p. 284). Despite general evolutions toward an integrative focus on person-by- situation interactions within the fields of social and personality psychology, residues of the earlier historic debates remain and are observable in the fields today. In a recent study by Tracy, Robins, and Sherman (2009), 159 editors and editorial board members of leading journals in social-personality psychology were recruited to provide insight into the current climate of social and personality research. Participants were asked to complete a survey three times, once as it pertained to their own research and a second and third time “as the ‘typical’ personality and social psychologist would,” respectively (Tracy et al., 2009, p. 1209). Interestingly, the respective parties’ stereotypes about both disciplines proved quite accurate. While personality psychologists and social psychologists commonly expressed interests in identifying dispositional and situational determinants of human behavior, pronounced differences exist regarding research designs employed, statistical analyses used, and types of validity prioritized. For instance, Figure 2 displays differences in analytical methods employed in the two subdisciplines. Compared to personality psychologists, social psychologists relied more heavily upon experimentation and factorial design, resulting in greater use of analysis of variance and meta-analytic assessments of experimental outcomes. However, personality psychologists used almost every other method of analysis more often. Personality psychologists’ reliance on a greater variety of multivariate techniques likely indicates greater weight placed on establishing construct validity in the development of personality measures. Conversely, social psychologists’ greater reliance on experimentation likely reflects an abiding assumption that effects of situational manipulations will 9 9 generalize to the average individual: the theoretical person to whom experimental results are thought to apply because individual difference variables (e.g., demographics, traits, culture) are distributed equally across conditions via random assignment. Tracy and colleagues (2009) summarized the polarized state of affairs in the following way: Two of the strongest differences that emerged between the groups reflected orientations toward the longstanding person–situation debate, suggesting that this issue continues to play a role in determining whether an individual is a personality or social researcher. . . . [P]ersonality researchers were more likely to characterize their overarching theoretical approach with the statement, “individuals’ behaviors, thoughts, and feelings tend to be consistent across situations and over time,” whereas social researchers were more likely to characterize their theoretical approach with the statement, “situations drive most behaviors, thoughts, and feelings” (p. 1215).

Figure 2. Statistical practices in personality and social psychological research (Tracy et al., 2009, p. 1214). 10 10

Although there likely is a greater level of collaboration today than at any time since the publication of Personality & Assessment, the differences revealed by Tracy and colleagues’ (2009) study illustrate quite concretely that deep divides remain. In light of these observed theoretical preconceptions, it is important to reconsider long-standing assumptions made about classic findings in psychology. Such revisiting may be particularly important for the field of social psychology. Reliance on the generalizability of many widely regarded social psychological results depends heavily upon the presumed validity of the average individual construct and generalizability of findings to it, a view which has been questioned on multiple bases in recent years (e.g., Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). It is worth reconsidering how truly representative or generalizable are classic findings that appear frequently in textbooks and popular media (Almereyda, 2015; Alvarez, 2015).

Personality Moderation of Classic Social Psychological Research A defining feature of early social psychological research is its impactful nature. Early research often placed individuals in highly potent and unusual situations, in which experimental realism was carefully cultivated and conditions were not regulated according to consistent standards of human subject protection (Beyrer & Kass, 2002). Placing individuals in highly impactful situations was thought to elicit strong response tendencies that overwhelm potential trait-based behavioral variation, thus increasing the generalizability of these findings (Fisher, 1959). If this assumption holds true, then close inspection of these highly impactful classic studies in social psychology should reveal main effects of strong situational factors, unqualified by individual difference variables. However, 11 11 thorough consideration of classic and modern extensions of foundational research studies paints a more complex picture. This is illustrated through consideration of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), which examined psychological factors contributing to abuses documented in the American prison system. Zimbardo recruited 24 students from Stanford University to participate in a two-week study. Participants were randomly assigned to the role of prison guard or prisoner. Despite random assignment and a prescreen assessment ensuring participants were clear of mental health problems, all participants got absorbed by the prison situation and the social roles it implied. However, individuals responded very differently to their respective role assignments, an important but often overlooked feature of behavioral outcomes in the SPE. As Zimbardo himself noted: [P]risoners had displayed three ways to cope with their feelings of frustration, absolute powerlessness, and their growing sense of helplessness and despair: at first, most prisoners fought and rebelled against the guards; by now four of them have reacted passively, by breaking down emotionally, forcing us to release them; and still others had reacted by becoming model prisoners. . . . It was also apparent that there are three types of guards: good guards who felt sorry and did little favors for the prisoners; tough but fair guards who followed the rules; and the sadistic guards who constantly degraded and humiliated the prisoners. (Musen & Zimbardo, 1992; c.f. Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973) These observations are at odds with the strict situationist model, which would predict convergence upon specific behavioral responses in each type of role (guard or prisoner) rather than such clear within-role variation. 12 12

A recent extended replication of the SPE recruitment procedure poses further theoretical difficulties for strict situationist interpretations. Carnahan and McFarland (2007) published newspaper classifieds which either recruited participants “for a psychological study” or “for a psychological study of prison life” – the latter of which was Zimbardo’s original wording – and found fewer persons responded to the prison life ad and those who did had higher levels of dispositional aggression, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, social dominance, and lower levels of empathy and altruism. Accordingly, it is reasonable to consider that Zimbardo may have obtained a biased sample with certain dispositional predilections toward accepting the authoritarian impulses entailed by prison-guard roles. This continued research begs a key question of Zimbardo’s classic impactful work: to what extent do the SPE findings reflect the power of the situation, the power of dispositions, and the conjunction of these two sources of variance? A similar analysis may be applied to Stanley Milgram’s (1963) work on obedience to authority. This line of research originated from Milgram’s considerations that Nazi soldiers may have been normal individuals who succumbed to the influence of powerful authorities (an environmental factor), and that the consciences of normal, average individuals may generally be overwhelmed by authorities’ coercive influence (i.e., regardless of individual difference factors; cf., Arendt, 1963). Milgram recruited subjects to participate in a study on learning techniques, in which a naïve participant performed the role of a teacher guiding a learner who was really Milgram’s confederate. The teacher was instructed to shock the learner for every incorrect answer given on a paired associates task, with a greater level of intensity each time, despite protests and discomfort increasingly expressed by the student. In the most famous variant on 13 13 this paradigm, a large number of participants (63%) obeyed the experimenter’s prompting and administered the maximum level of 450 (pretend) volts to the student. While these findings have been generalized to suggest the average person would give potentially fatal levels of punishment when instructed by a superior, the 37% of participants who were unwilling to do so remained largely unexplained. What separates individuals into these two groups: those who surrender to complete obedience, and those who defy their orders? Three years after Milgram’s publication, evidence supporting individual differences between obedients and defiants was obtained (Elms & Milgram, 1966). This follow-up study discovered that obedients showed significantly higher scores on the California F Scale, a measure of authoritarianism (Adorno, Frenkel- Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950), as well as “significant attitudinal differences . . . toward own father, experimenter, experimental confederate, sponsoring university, willingness to shoot at men in wartime, and other concepts, in patterns somewhat similar to ‘authoritarian personalities’” (Elms & Milgram, 1966, p. 282). More recently, Bègue, Beauvois, Courbet, Oberlé, Lepage, and Duke (2015) showed that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were positively related to obedience to authority in a Milgram-like paradigm. In his career, Milgram had remained skeptical that dispositional foundations of obedience could be mapped successfully: “I am certain that there is a complex personality basis to obedience and disobedience. But I know we have not found it” (Milgram, 1974, p. 205). Yet Bègue et al.’s research suggests that continued empirical analysis and integration of sophisticated forms of personality assessment may help reveal personality moderation in classic, impactful social psychological paradigms. One might assume that similar critical analyses have been applied to the most famous forbearer of Milgram’s research: the conformity work of Milgram’s 14 14 graduate advisor, Solomon Asch (Asch, 1951, 1955, 1956). Asch examined how individuals conform to group social pressure, asking: will individuals publicly comply with a group trend when it is clearly inaccurate? Asch’s work built upon that of Muzafer Sherif (1935), in which individuals estimated the movement of a stationary point of light while seated in a dark room. In isolation, participants’ estimations varied greatly, owing to the fact that apparent movement of the light point was a product of saccadic eye moment unique to individuals (the autokinetic effect) and difficult to judge in the measurement units specified (inches). However, when placed in a room with others, individuals’ estimates gradually converged over time. Sherif concluded that individuals would conform their reported perceptions when presented with ambiguous stimuli, because others’ verbal reports of their perceptions provide presumably reliable disambiguating information (i.e., informational influence). Asch instead examined whether individuals will conform in their verbal, public behavior, even when doing so entailed responding in ways they knew to be distinctly wrong (i.e., normative influence). As described earlier, Asch’s line- judgment paradigm yielded significant evidence that people conformed to a group opinion, even though doing so entailed publicly expressing judgments inconsistent with the participants’ privately held beliefs. Consistent with a strong situational effect in Asch’s work, on the 12 wrong-answer trials 76% of participants conformed at least once, whereas less than 1% of participants gave wrong answers in a control condition (in which no confederates gave wrong answers). However, further scrutiny reveals interpersonal variability among Asch’s participants. Only 11% of participants conformed on every trial, while participants were spilt fairly even (50/50) regarding whether they conformed on at least three trials. As with the work of Zimbardo and Milgram, individuals appeared to differ in the level to 15 15 which they succumbed to social pressure. Asch himself thus implicated the possible role of personality: “there were wide, and indeed, striking differences among individuals within the same experimental situation. The hypothesis was proposed that these are functionally dependent on relatively enduring character differences” (p. 190). A variety of extensions of Asch’s original work have revealed that many situational factors influence levels of conformity, including group consensus/support (Allen & Levine, 1969), group cohesion (Crandall, 1988), group status (Driskell & Mullen, 1990), and group size (Wilder, 1977). Yet from Asch’s time to today, attempts to study personality as a moderator of conformity have been scant. In the wake of Asch’s work, several researchers attempted to uncover underlying relationships between personality and conformity (Barron, 1953; Crutchfield, 1955). Working in conjunction with Asch, Barron (1953) correlated conforming line judgments with an early version of the Gough Adjective Check List (Gough, 1950; which has since undergone revision, e.g., Gough & Heilbrun, 1980), the MMPI (which did not correlate with conformity), an early test of preferences for drawn figures of varying complexity (Barron & Welsh, 1952), and an ad hoc questionnaire consisting of items selected because Barron and Asch deemed them face valid (Barron, 1953, p. 294). The yielders “characterize themselves as obliging, optimistic, efficient, determined, patient, and kind,” while the nonconformists viewed “themselves primarily as original, emotional, and artistic” (Barron, 1953, p. 297). These findings were relatively consistent with those of Crutchfield, who correlated a wide variety of individual assessment measures with levels of conformity: “staff rating of intellectual competence” (r = -.63), Terman Concept Mastery Test (r = -.51), Barron’s Ego Strength Scale (r = -.33), California Personality Inventory: Tolerance & Social 16 16

Pressure and Responsibility (r = -.30 to -.41), and the California Fascism Scale (F- scale) (r = .39). In addition to these assessments, Crutchfield also utilized an old version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), current at the time the study was conducted. From his findings, Crutchfield (1955) concluded conformists to be more authoritarian and have a “neurotic tone” (p. 195, though MMPI neuroticism did not correlate with conformity). Nonconformists were found to exhibit “freedom from compulsion about rules, adventurousness (perhaps tinged with exhibitionism), self-assertiveness, and self-respect” (Crutchfield, 1955, p. 195). Arguably, it is not surprising to find there was no significant correlation with Neuroticism, given both the MMPI’s rudimentary nature and that the study’s manipulation of social influence was implemented through false feedback in isolated cubicles rather than in the context of face-to-face encounters with confederate actors. In fact, one key criticism of Crutchfield’s paradigm stems from his decision to use this less impactful method, which radically deviated from the strong situational elements originally employed by Asch. Without the presence of others, the manipulation becomes less impactful and may lead to weaker conformity effects (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). Generally speaking, Barron’s (1953) and Crutchfield’s (1955) early tests for personality moderation of conformity used measures that may be considered outdated by today’s standards. Lacking strong, statistically reliable and valid measures of personality traits, these works present the question: would similar results be obtained using modern assessments that have been subjected to extensive validation? Contemporary research on this subject presents as a sort of mirror image of the strengths and limitations of earlier work: as psychologists interested in 17 17 individual differences in conformity have come to rely on more sophisticated personality measurement devices, they have shifted away from high impact procedures for measuring conformity such as those employed by Asch (e.g., DeYoung, Peterson, & Higgins, 2002; Parent, Moradi, Rummel, & Tokar, 2011; Trautmann-Lengsfeld, & Herrmann, 2014). One approach has been to incorporate the NEO Personality Inventory (McCrae & Costa, 2010), which reliably and validly measures the Five Factor Model (“Big 5”; Wiggins et al., 2003): Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Researchers who have integrated this and similar devices have, at the same time, employed survey-based, self-report assessments of conformity that appear to get at that construct in a rather indirect manner. For instance, Parent and colleagues (2011) examined the relationship between the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (Parent & Moradi, 2009), personality (NEO-FFI-S; Costa & McCrae, 1989, 1992), and self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). Similarly, DeYoung and colleagues (2002) used the Impression Management scale from the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (Paulhus, 1991) and the Lie scale from Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985) to measure the tendency to conform, and correlated it with personality as measured via the NEO. DeYoung and colleagues (2002) found that conformity correlated with Stability (a higher-order composite of Emotional Stability [i.e., lower Neuroticism], Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness scores), and negatively with Plasticity (a higher-order composite of Extraversion and Openness scores). These findings serve as a partial basis for the present research, though cautiously so, as survey-based methodologies employed by Parent and colleagues (2011) and DeYoung and colleagues (2002) arguably stripped away the profound social- situational impact that made Asch’s work so noteworthy to begin with. 18 18

To rekindle the experimentally realistic and gripping approach, the present research borrowed heavily from the methods of Burger (1987), who developed an experimental procedure closely resembling that of Asch. Burger asked participants to numerically rate the humorousness of cartoons in the presence of confederates. Pretesting verified the cartoons were normatively unfunny, and confederates gave scripted numeric responses indicating high perceived cartoon humorousness. Burger then examined associations between a personality variable, desire for control, (Burger & Cooper, 1979) and the extent to which participants’ cartoon humorousness ratings increased in the presence of the seemingly amused confederates. Participants with relatively low desire to exert control over events in their life showed pronounced normatively based conformity. Burger (1987) yielded promising findings using a “single-trait” approach: the approach to trait study in which a single important psychological trait’s association with a set of behaviors is measured (cf., Funder, 2010, p. 215). Yet adopting this approach limited the scope of Burger’s (1987) work to an arguably narrow focus on that one trait. The “essential-trait” approach provides an alternative methodology in which sets of factor analytically derived traits are measured in conjunction and associated with important behaviors (cf., Funder, 2010, p. 240). The present research proceeds from the assumption that an essential-trait approach should be adopted when testing for personality correlates of conformity. Arguably, the phenomenon of conformity can best be rooted in the full existing system of personality assessment methods not simply by examining a single trait, but rather by examining associations with sets of essential traits that possess extensively documented associations (convergent validity) and non- associations (discriminant validity) with other traits of clinical and non-clinical significance. This approach is consistent with Cronbach and Meehl’s (1955) 19 19 advocacy of the establishment of a “nomological net” (p. 209): a set of probabilistic laws that govern and/or limit a construct based upon its association with known relevant forms of measurement. Across many cultures and historical contexts in the 20th and 21st Centuries, confirmatory factor analytic studies have demonstrated the Big 5 to be among the most robust set of essential traits (Fiske, 1949; Tupes & Christal, 1961). The most widely used and extensively validated Big 5 scale today is the NEO-PI-R (hereafter referred to as “NEO”; McCrae & Costa, 1987). Accordingly, in employing the NEO, the present work integrates a social psychological phenomenon (conformity) into a multimethod pool of personality assessment procedures to an extent that has not been done before. A recent effort toward such integration points to the NEO’s effectiveness in predicting conformity in Burger’s (1987) Asch-like paradigm. In three studies employing Burger’s cartoon humor evaluation procedure, Kosloff, Irish, and Perreault (2016) demonstrated that greater Conscientiousness, greater Agreeableness, and lower Neuroticism predicted greater normatively based conformity. These findings converged with DeYoung and colleagues’ (2002) observed association between self-reported conformity and the higher-order personality composite of Stability (cf., Digman, 1997). Overall, the presence (vs. absence) of seemingly amused confederates elicited an enormous increase in naïve participants’ average humorousness ratings (r = .65), and the Big 5 accounted for 23% of variance of this effect. Kosloff and colleagues also showed, rather surprisingly, that these dispositional and situational factors drove not only public compliance, but also private acceptance. Relative to baseline cartoon humorousness ratings provided by participants in isolation, both verbal (public) and written (private) cartoon humorousness ratings given in the presence of seemingly amused confederates showed massive increases that correlated with the 20 20 aforementioned Big 5 domains. Stated differently, social pressure and traits predicted tendencies both to publicly cave to group pressure and to internalize the norm imposed by that group. In light of these findings, Kosloff and colleagues (2016) considered why Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness may contribute to conformity. To do so, the researchers analyzed numerous NEO subscales and determined which facets of the five broad domains correlated most strongly with conforming humorousness judgments. Kosloff and colleagues found that neurotics’ lack of conformity was best explained by proneness to sadness, loneliness, dejection, and feelings of inferiority. This suggests neurotic individuals may be predisposed to believing they do not belong to the group; and when others displayed a consensus that the neurotics did not understand, they showed a dispositional trend toward isolation. Feeling marginalized, neurotics displayed divisive behaviors that segregated them from the group, fulfilling negative expectations they have for themselves (akin to the phenomenon of self-verification; Swann & Read, 1981). In contrast, the conformity-Agreeableness association seemed driven by individuals’ tendencies to sincerely sympathize and empathize with others, as well as willingness to help others, and genuinely see others as honest and well- intentioned. These features appeared to makes it easier for agreeable individuals to adopt group opinions. Finally, conscientious individuals are purposeful, determined, reliable, and strong-willed. When placed in a group of individuals who apparently shared a genuine enjoyment of the cartoons displayed, it is possible conscientious individuals tasked themselves with thoroughly understanding what it is the others were finding so enjoyable. In doing so, they even came to adopt the group’s points of view as their own. 21 21 The Present Study Although promising, Kosloff and colleagues’ (2016) work – along with, arguably, all major social psychological studies of conformity, including Asch’s – examined conformity regarding a benign, socially inconsequential topic. Important instances of conformity in the real world do not typically take the form of line judgments or humorousness evaluations; rather, they may entail intense and highly consequential behavioral outcomes, particularly among impressionable youth and college-aged individuals. Accordingly, the present study endeavored to examine a behavioral decision-making context with substantial translational value. Specifically, this research tested for personality predictors of the likelihood that college students would succumb to peer pressure when publicly and privately expressing willingness to engage in highly risky behaviors (i.e., acts that could put others and/or themselves in some form of danger or uncertainty). Participants were asked to numerically rate the likelihood they would engage in risky actions presented in a series of vignettes, while surrounded by confederates who expressed strong willingness to engage in the risky acts depicted. It was hypothesized that individuals high in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness would display elevated levels of conformity when presented with the risk-taking vignettes. Consistent with Kosloff et al.’s (2016) considerations, agreeable individuals may assume the group is well-intentioned; the process of empathizing and sympathizing with others’ advocacy of risky actions may overwhelm agreeable peoples’ normal hesitations about performing those behaviors. In view of the group’s apparent willingness to engage in risky acts, conscientious individuals may dutifully reconsider their own risk perceptions: asking themselves whether the action may not be as concerning as initially thought. This may result in a tendency to adopt the pro-risk opinions expressed by 22 22 the group. In contrast, it was hypothesized that greater Neuroticism would be associated with lower levels of conformity. As self-perceived outsiders with low levels of emotional stability, more neurotic individuals may verify their own negative self-relevant expectations, both by amplifying their hesitation to engage in potentially scary actions and by setting themselves apart from the group as someone who simply does not understand what the others so readily grasp. Accordingly, neurotics’ initial hesitations to engage in risky actions will be magnified as the confederates seem more likely to participate in the risky behaviors described. Following from Kosloff et al.’s observations, it was hypothesized these outcomes will occur consistently across private and public conformity measures.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Pilot Test A pilot test was first conducted to select risky behavior vignettes for use in the main study. In this preliminary test, normative ratings of willingness to engage in risky behaviors were obtained for 22 vignettes, each depicting a different risky decision-making scenario. Participants completed all materials independently, with no social pressure from confederates. The scenarios were created ad hoc for this research. They were modeled after items from the Domain-Specific Risk- Taking scale (Blais & Weber, 2006), so as to include depictions of various forms of risk (e.g., physical risk, risk of breaking the law, risk of loss). Three criteria for a given vignette’s inclusion in the main study were established a priori. First, it was important to establish that, in the absence of social pressure from others, participants expressed relatively low willingness to engage in the behavior depicted. Doing so would ensure that higher ratings of risk- willingness in the main study (when pressure from confederates to provide high ratings would be introduced) indicated deviation from low norms. Accordingly, for a pilot-tested vignette to be selected for use in the main study, it had to obtain mean risk-willingness levels at or below the midpoint on a 1 (would definitely not do) to 100 (would definitely do) scale. Second, it was important to establish that the subset of selected vignettes showed adequate internal-consistency reliability (Cronbach, 1951). This would justify the formation of a composite risk-willingness score as the primary dependent variable in the main study. Third, to be selected, a vignette had to display minimal correlations with Big 5 domain scores. Accordingly, after providing risk-willingness ratings, 24 participants in the pilot test completed the NEO (McCrae & Costa, 2010). Among vignettes for which no such correlations existed in the absence of social pressure (i.e., in the pilot study, where participants completed the materials alone), it is reasonable to interpret the emergence of such correlations in the main study (where confederates were present and applied social pressure to give high ratings) as evidence of conforming risk-willingness ratings. However, the presence of correlations between personality and risk-willingness in the pilot study did not preclude a given vignette’s inclusion in the main study. Changes in the strength or direction of such associations could be informative, though potentially challenging to interpret. Accordingly, in the selection process, vignettes showing nonsignificant baseline correlations between risk-willingness and Big 5 domain scores were preferred for the sake of simplicity and clarity; however, those which showed relatively few baseline associations remained in consideration if they fulfilled the other two criteria.

Method

Participants. One-hundred-and-one participants from the California State University, Fresno Introductory Psychology subject pool participated in exchange for course credit. Due to experimenter error, demographic data were not obtained from this sample. One participant was exuded for failing to follow instructions, and two others were excluded for indicating they did not respond accurately and honestly when completing the NEO, resulting in a final sample of N = 98.

Procedure. Participants arrived at a computer laboratory and voluntarily seated themselves at one of 24 computer stations. The stations were spaced approximately four feet from one another, preventing participants from seeing one 25 another’s responses. Participants were told the “survey is in two parts, the first part will ask you to give a rating of various scenarios on a scale of 1-100. Please give one whole number for each scenario.” The second section “will ask you to answer questions about yourself.” Participants were asked to provide the response to each scenario that best “reflects how you would respond in the situation presented.” After providing responses to the 22 vignettes, participants completed the NEO (McCrae & Costa, 2010).

Results. A subset of 13 vignettes fulfilled the three criteria outlined above (see Table 1 and Appendix A). First, mean risk-willingness for each of these vignettes was at or below the scale’s midpoint. The grand mean was M = 29.17 (SD = 14.33), indicating participants were normatively unwilling to do the action presented. Second, risk-willingness ratings for these vignettes demonstrated adequate internal-consistency reliability (Cronbach’s α = .71). Finally, most correlations between Big 5 domain scores and willingness ratings were nonsignificant (78% or 51/65).

Main Study This study presented the 13 vignettes selected from the pilot study to subjects in a setting where confederates imposed pressures to conform. Social pressure was introduced by having participants give oral responses, and then written responses, in the presence of confederates who verbally expressed high willingness to engage in the risky acts depicted in the vignettes. Specifically, three confederates gave scripted numeric risk-willingness responses well above the mean rating obtained for each vignette in the pilot study (see Table 2). Participants were asked to provide responses in both public (verbal) and private (written) formats. Measuring responses in both formats allowed examination

Table 1

Pilot Study: Mean Vignette Risk-Willingness Ratings and Correlations with Big 5 Domain Scores. Vignette M (SD) Neuroticism Extroversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness Ride a Motorcycle with No Helmet 25.97 (29.88) -.15 .11 .20* -.01 -.14 Steal Cable From Cable Company 48.59 (35.49) -.06 .13 .06 -.14 -.02 Steal a Movie Pass 35.19 (35.62) .01 -.06 -.03 -.10 -.10 Smoking Pot with Friends 15.87 (28.78) .16 .06 .11 -.10 -.22* Call in Sick to Work 32.50 (31.18) .14 -.07 .05 -.15 -.29* Cheat on a Test 20.21 (27.53) .11 -.04 .04 -.21* -.24* Go on a Date and Skip Birthday Party 50.63 (29.13) .12 -.12 .12 -.02 -.10 Traveling Without Plans 35.83 (30.79) -.14 .22* .23* .06 -.03 Tagging a Wall to Fit In 23.07 (28.76) .01 .16 .22* -.09 -.22* Be a Part of Infidelity 16.41 (26.33) .01 -.13 .00 -.25* -.00 Dine and Dash 17.38 (27.05) .02 -.06 -.05 -.23* -.16 Download a Movie Illegally 31.52 (31.73) -.05 .03 .01 -.12 -.11 Buy Alcohol for Underage Kids 25.98 (31.29) -.04 .23* -.09 -.23* -.21* *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

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27 of whether conformity occurred via normative influence, informational influence, or both. Since Kosloff et al. (2016) observed comparable effects for both public and private ratings, it was anticipated that findings would converge across both indices. This would imply that social pressure from confederates caused individuals to diverge from normative low risk-willingness ratings publicly, and then remain committed, internally, to risk-willingness ratings that diverged from the true baseline (cf., Cialdini, 1984). The simple effect of conformity was measured as the extent to which participants’ average risk-willingness ratings in this main study (confederates present) deviated from the mean risk-willingness ratings obtained in the pilot study (confederates absent). Further, insofar as correlations between average risk- willingness ratings and NEO subscales increased in strength in the main study (relative to the pilot study), they were interpreted as trait-related bases of conformity.

Method

Participants. Fifty-eight Introductory Psychology students from California State University, Fresno were recruited to participate in exchange for course credit. Nine participants were excluded due to procedural error (e.g., confederate did not accurately provide scripted numeric risk-willingness ratings); one participant was excluded because s/he expressed strong suspicion regarding the confederate actors, as revealed during a post-experimental probing procedure; one participant was excluded because s/he personally knew one of the confederates; one participant was excluded because s/he was 17 years-old. The final sample size was thus 46 (age: M = 19.09, SD = 1.15; 11 males, 35 females). However, one participant’s written/private responses were excluded due both to missing values

Table 2

Scripted Confederate Risk-Willingness Ratings Vignette Confederate 1 Confederate 2 Confederate 3

Ride a Motorcycle with No Helmet 67 65 55 Steal Cable From Cable Company 99 94 85 Steal a Movie Pass 74 90 70 Smoking Pot with Friends 67 50 40 Call in Sick to Work 70 66 83

Cheat on a Test 48 58 60 Go on a Date and Skip Birthday Party 79 90 93 Traveling Without Plans 70 76 75 Tagging a Wall to Fit In 55 60 65 Be a Part of Infidelity 50 52 50 Dine and Dash 50 60 46 Download a Movie Illegally 70 60 77 Buy Alcohol for Underage Kids 65 55 76

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29 and failure to follow instructions when providing those responses; that participant’s public responses were retained in all analyses. The final sample was 10.9% Asian, 6.5% Black, Non-Hispanic, 60.9% Hispanic/Latino, 2.2% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 10.9% White, Non-Hispanic, and 8.7% “other” (of the 4 participants reporting “other,” 2 were White/Hispanic, 1 was White/Asian, and 1 was Native American). Further, the sample was 8.7% Agnostic, 2.2% Atheist, 54.3% Christian, 2.2% Muslim, 32.6% other (of the 12 participants reporting “other,” 8 reported they were Catholic, 1 Shamanist, 1 Sikh, 1 Transcendental, and 1 claimed no religion). Thus the obtained sample was quite diverse in race/ethnicity and religion.

Procedure. As the participant arrived, confederates #1 and #2 were seated across an oblong table waiting with their informed consent form signed and facedown (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Diagram of seating arrangement for researcher (R), participant (P), and three confederates. 30

The participant was directed to a chair, already pulled out, with a consent form face up. When the participant was seated the researcher placed a new consent form face up in front of the only remaining seat. As the participant signed the informed consent, confederate #3 received a hidden message to enter the room and join at the table. When all confederates were seated and all consent forms signed, the researcher collected all forms and began the study. Participants were told “we are interested in better understanding how an individual’s mood and sleep patterns influence the decisions a person makes.” To bolster the cover story, participants then completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988; Appendix B) and the Morningness and Eveningness Questionnaire (Terman et al., 1976; Appendix C). Next, the participant and confederates were assigned an order in which to respond by drawing number sheets from a bowl. The participant believed that the number selection was a random assignment; however, all number sheets in the bowl said 4. This ensured the participant would always be last to respond. Each vignette was displayed on a projector screen via PowerPoint while a recorded voice read the vignette aloud. On each of the 13 trials, the researcher asked each responder to verbally indicate their personal likelihood of doing or not doing the event on “a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being that you definitely wouldn’t do the action and 100 being you would definitely do the action.” Confederates each gave prearranged responses to the 13 vignettes, while the participant’s responses were recorded. Next, the respondents gave ratings of the same 13 vignettes in the same order in a written format; subjects were instructed that “this is not a test of memory of prior responses. If you like, you may evaluate new elements of the situations or reevaluate elements you noticed before. Like I said at the beginning, we’re collecting responses in both verbal and written formats.” 31

Finally, participants were told they would complete one last inventory, but further informed that, because it is rather lengthy, they would do so in individual cubicles. The participant was then ushered to an isolated cubicle to complete the NEO. Upon finishing the NEO, the participant was probed and debriefed, with careful consideration given to the final probing question: “[Participant first name], would it surprise you to learn that the rest of the participants here are not really participants, but instead are my collaborators? That is, you are the only one here that’s the participant today. Did you ever think that at any point during the study?” As mentioned earlier, only one participant expressed suspicion at this point, and was excluded on that basis. The trial concluded with the researcher explaining the true nature of the study to the participant.

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS

Results

Effect of Social Pressure on Risk- Willingness Internal-consistency reliability coefficients were acceptable and comparable to those observed in the pilot study for both public risk-willingness ratings (α = .70) and private risk-willingness ratings (α = .74). Consequently, separate public and private composites were formed. These composites were strongly positively correlated (r = .89, p < .001). Further, compared to mean risk-willingness ratings obtained in the pilot study for the 13 selected vignettes (M = 29.17, SD = 14.33), risk-willingness was greatly heightened in the main study on both the public index (M = 49.81, SD = 11.89), t(142) = 8.50, d = 1.57, and the private index (M = 46.94, SD = 14.56), t(141) = 6.86, d = 1.35. Accordingly, as predicted, social pressure from confederates elicited substantially higher risk-willingness ratings, reflecting a strong conformity effect.

Effect of Social Pressure on NEO Ratings It was assumed that NEO domain scores would not differ as a function of the presence vs. absence of social pressure; that is, theoretically there was no basis for assuming that self-reported personality on the NEO at the end of the study would be altered by whether or not participants had just been providing responses in isolation (pilot study) rather than in a group setting (main study). To test this assumption, a one-way (social pressure: group vs. alone) MANOVA was conducted on the five NEO domain scales. The omnibus test was not significant, F(5,138) = 1.26, p = .29. As displayed in Table 3, mean levels of NEO domains 33 33 were statistically equivalent across levels of the social pressure variable. Thus, the primary predictors in this research (i.e., the social pressure and the NEO domain scores) were orthogonal.

Table 3

Pairwise Comparisons (LSD) of Big 5 Domains across Levels of the Social Pressure Variable Alone (pilot) Group (main study)

Facet M(SD) M(SD) F (p-value)

Neuroticism 54.31 (8.84) 56.09 (9.18) 1.24 (.27) Extraversion 51.37 (10.06) 53.96 (11.49) 1.89 (.17) Openness 50.41 (9.41) 51.41 (9.78) 0.35 (.56) Agreeableness 43.86 (8.87) 42.43 (9.97) 0.74 (.39) Conscientiousness 49.27 (9.06) 47.74 (9.63) 0.85 (.36)

Moderating Effect of Personality on Conformity Reliability coefficients for the NEO domains were as follows: Neuroticism α = .91, Extraversion α = .91, Openness α = .85, Agreeableness α = .86, Conscientiousness α = .91. To test the moderating influence of personality on conformity, separate hierarchical linear regressions were performed on public and private risk-willingness composites, respectively. In both analyses, first-block predictors included the dummy-coded (0 vs. 1) social pressure variable, as well as the five NEO domain scales, and the second block added the five relevant social pressure*personality interaction terms (standardized beta coefficients are reported). On public responses, results showed a large and significant main effect of the situational social pressure manipulation, β = .56, t(137) = 8.38, p < .001, marginally significant main effects of Neuroticism, β = -.14, t(137) = -1.70, p = .09, and Openness, β = .11, t(137) = 1.71, p = .09, and significant main effects of 34 34

Extraversion, β = .15, t(137) = 2.02, p = .046, Agreeableness, β = -.162, t(137) = - 2.46, p = .02, and Conscientiousness, β = -.30, t(137) = -3.87, p < .001. However, none of the interaction terms were significant (p’s > .21). An inspection of within- cell correlations (see Table 3) clearly showed the associations between traits and risk-willingness ratings were comparable across levels of the social pressure variable. Thus, despite efforts to select risk vignettes for which the baseline (pilot) risk-willingness ratings exhibited minimal association with the traits in question, the main study results suggested that even the minimal correlations were fairly robust regardless of whether confederates imposed social pressure to express high risk-willingness. Notably, although the strength and/or significance of these correlations did vary somewhat across conditions, there was no consistent pattern (e.g., it was not the case that, compared to the alone condition, the group condition consistently strengthened the observed personality/risk-willingness associations). Further, separate Fisher’s Z exact tests confirmed that, across levels of the social pressure variable, the correlations did not differ significantly (all Z’s < .90, all p’s > .36). A similar pattern of findings was obtained on private responses, where results again showed a large and significant main effect of the situational social pressure variable, β = .46, t(136) = 6.60, p < .001, a marginally significant main effect of Neuroticism, β = -.15, t(136) = -1.70, p = .09, and significant main effects of Openness, β = .14, t(136) = 2.03, p = .045, Agreeableness, β = -.17, t(136) = - 2.42, p = .02, and Conscientiousness, β = -.30, t(136) = -3.63, p < .001. Again though, none of the interaction terms were significant (p’s > .36). As with public ratings, an inspection of within-cell correlations (Table 4) clearly showed that associations between traits and risk-willingness ratings were comparable across conditions (all Fisher’s Z’s ≤ .8, all p’s > .42).

Table 4

Correlations between Risk-Willingness and Big 5 Domain Scores as a Function of Social Pressure and Public/Private Response Assessment. Social Pressure Sample M (SD) Neuroticism Extroversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness

Alone (pilot) N = 98 29.17a (14.33) -.01 .10 .15 -.25* -.28**

Public (N = 46) 49.81b (11.89) .01 .26† .26† -.14 -.24 Group (main study) Private (N = 45) 46.94b (14.56) .04 .12 .29† -.13 -.23

NOTE: †p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01 (all 2-tailed); means with differing subscripts differed at p < .001.

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36 36

Exploratory NEO Facet Analyses Although primary analyses did not support hypotheses regarding personality moderation of conformity, ancillary analyses were conducted to examine whether specific facets of the Big 5 may have contributed to conforming risk-willingness ratings. Specifically, after observing Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness to moderate conforming humor judgments, Kosloff et al. (2016) followed up by examining which facets of those three dimensions contributed to the overall moderating domain effects. Each of the Big 5 domains consists of six distinct facets, constituting discrete dimensions of the broader domain constructs (McCrae & Costa, 2010). Kosloff et al. (2016) suggested their conformity effects were driven by 14 of these facets: three facets of Neuroticism (N3: Depression, N4: Self-Consciousness, N5: Impulsiveness); four facets of Agreeableness (A1: Trust, A2: Straightforwardness, A3: Altruism, A6: Tender- Mindedness); all six facets of Conscientiousness (C1: Competence, C2: Order, C3: Dutifulness, C4: Achievement Striving, C5: Self-Discipline, C6: Deliberation); and one facet of Extraversion (E6: Positive Emotions). In the present research, exploratory analyses were thus performed to examine whether these subsets of facet scores contributed to conforming risk-willingness ratings. Efforts were made to minimize the number of additional exploratory tests: these analyses only entailed Fisher’s Z exact tests comparing the strength of correlations between a facet and risk-willingness across levels of the social pressure variable, and only included the 14 facets identified by Kosloff et al. (2016) to have contributed to conformity in their research. Further, given the observed close correspondence in patterns of results across the public and private ratings, these ancillary facet analyses were only carried out using the public risk-willingness measure. Results, 37 37 displayed in Table 5, clearly showed facet/risk-willingness correlations did not differ as a function of social pressure condition.

Table 5

Correlations (r) between Select Big 5 Facets and Public Risk-Willingness Ratings as a Function of Social Pressure Group (main Facet Alone (pilot) Fisher's Z (p-value) study)

N3: Depression .02 .16 0.8 (.44) N4: Self-Consciousness -.09 -.08 0.1 (.96) N5: Impulsiveness .10 .21 0.6 (.54) E6: Positive Emotions .03 .13 0.6 (.58) A1: Trust -.09 .09 1.0 (.32) A2: Straightforwardness -.30** -.44** -0.9 (.77) A3: Altruism -.10 .13 1.3 (.21)

A6: Tender-Mindedness .00 .02 -0.1 (.91) C1: Competence -.20† .05 -1.4 (.17) C2: Order -.10 -.25† 0.8 (.40) C3: Dutifulness -.32** -.20 -0.7 (.48)

C4: Achievement Striving -.07 -.01 -0.3 (.74) C5: Self-Discipline -.21* -.09 -0.7 (.50) C6: Deliberation -.35** -.45** 0.7 (.51)

NOTE: †p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01 (all two-tailed).

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION

Contrary to the primary hypothesis, personality traits did not interact with social influence to predict conforming risk-willingness ratings. Instead, independent main effects occurred, both with respect to the situational variable (i.e., social pressure, operationalized as the presence vs. absence of risk- advocating confederates) and the dispositional variables (i.e., NEO domain scores). The situational effect was extremely strong; social pressure from confederates elicited a profound conformity effect. Moreover, relative to low risk- willingness expressed by participants when alone (in the pilot study), risk- willingness ratings under condition of group pressure were amplified both in public, verbal articulations and in private, written form (in the main study). Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness generally showed negative associations with risk-willingness, which appears consistent with neurotics’ wariness of emotionally challenging events, agreeable people’s preference for positive rather than aversive social consequences, and conscientious people’s motivation to be dutiful rather than thwart rules of conduct (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 2010). However, the dispositional main effects appeared weaker than the situational effect, harkening to Mischel’s situationist perspective (1968). Indeed, consistent with Mischel’s (1968) claims about the size of the personality coefficient, the trait-based correlations observed here did not exceed r = .3. Further, the present results supported the idea that, although situational and dispositional factors predict behavior, situational coefficients may tend to be stronger (Funder & Ozer, 1983). In light of these findings, should future studies in the area of personality correlates of influential phenomena such as conformity be discouraged? Although 39 39 these results showed the situation to be a strong predictor of behavior, there is reason to continue exploring dispositional moderators in the future. As stated previously, revisiting classic social psychological studies with consideration of moderating personality factors has resulted in a broadened understanding of individual behavior (e.g., Carnahan & McFarland, 2007). Further, this study did reveal evidence that personality can predict variance in behavior, albeit only modestly, and prior work suggested the fruitfulness specifically of examining relationships between personality and conformity (e.g., DeYoung et al., 2002; Parent & Moradi, 2009). Of course, the present work does not support an interactionist perspective when considered in isolation. Yet, in the broader context of social influence research and efforts to bridge gaps between social and personality psychology, there arguably remains great utility in extending the present research. Considering limitations evident in the present research supports this perspective. First, this study may have failed to uncover personality moderation of conformity due to differences between elements of the paradigm used and aspects of Asch’s (1951), Burger’s (1987), and Kosloff and colleagues’ (2016) work. For instance, as noted previously, the Asch paradigm required individuals to provide correct pairings of two lines, an action that implied little or no negative consequences should participants have agreed with the false group opinion. However, in the present study, when an individual agreed with the group opinion they openly committed themselves to actions with high levels of personal and/or social risk. The nature of the situation presented to participants may thus have constrained potential trait expression. Indeed, according to Berge and De Raad (2001; an adaptation of Fisher, 1959 [see Figure 4]), when people are required to 40 40 respond to stronger (“restrictive”) situations, variability in trait expression may be reduced owing to the forcefulness of the environment.

Figure 4. Fisher’s (1959) “twisted pear” model of a heteroscedastic relationship, adapted by Berge and Raad (2001, p. 273) to characterize differential variability in trait-based behavioral expression (Y-axis) as a function of the restrictive (R) versus eliciting (E) nature of a situation (X-axis).

For instance, shouting “fire!” in a crowded building may elicit fight-or- flight response regardless of individual differences in anxiety. Similarly, in the present study, consideration of highly risky scenarios may have constrained trait- based variability in conformity proneness. Perhaps the inconsequential nature of outcomes made personality moderation more likely in relevant prior research. Benign actions such as judging line lengths or cartoons’ humorousness may be more “eliciting,” in the terms of Berge and De Raad’s (2001) model, facilitating variability in trait-based behavior. Similarly, whereas an expression of willingness to engage in risky actions implies behavioral intention to perform an action, 41 41 judgments of line lengths and humorousness do not imply a future action. Asking individuals to respond in manners that implied clear behavioral intentions may have increased the restrictive nature of present social pressure variable. Secondly, it is possible that personality correlates of risk-willingness are not predisposed to fluctuation. Thus, two main effects were observed because the variability endemic to personality and risk-willingness correlates does not interact with situational variables. Though efforts were made to minimize NEO/risk- willingness correlations, there were still some preexisting correlations, suggesting personality may be more tied to the expression of risk-willingness than it is drawn upon by situational forces. In this view, the observed variability in personality indicated predilections toward dispositional risk-willingness, which restricted trait- based responsiveness toward the external social pressure variable. Further, it is possible that the measure of risk-willingness used was inadequate. Items from the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking scale (Blais & Weber, 2006) were expanded into vignettes and selected for use in the main study, based upon having relatively low mean risk-willingness ratings that correlated only minimally with NEO subscales and showed decent internal-consistency reliability. Yet no factor analysis or other critical scale development procedures were used in the creation of these vignettes and the measurement scale employed. Nor was there an attempt to establish construct validity. Future research would benefit from establishing both convergent and divergent validity to ensure that the construct of risk-taking is accurately measured. Toward these aims, researchers may first seek to assess correlations between the vignettes used in this study and the Domain- Specific Risk-Taking scale (Blais & Weber, 2006) or, alternatively, the Life Experience Inventory (Torrance & Ziller, 1957). Establishing a robust correlation between these measures would establish convergent validity. Conversely, 42 42 researchers could establish divergent validity by comparing the present risk- willingness assessment measure with established measures that should find no correlations with risk-willingness. While the risk-willingness measure developed for this research was moderately internally consistent, it is also possible that the set of vignettes selected was multifaceted in the way conformity would operate. That is, there may be several constructs which make up the single measure of risk-willingness, which are highly related to one another, thus giving the appearance of internal consistency. For example, among the vignettes presented (see Appendix A), observe items 1 (willingness to ride a motorcycle with no helmet), 4 (willingness to smoke pot with friends), and 13 (willingness to buy alcohol for underage kids). Each represents a drastically different type of risk: risk as a result of physical harm; risk due to social expectations being violated; and risk of breaking the law. While these items appear commonly to fit under the broad construct of risk, it is possible one or more represents different risk constructs within this ad hoc measure. If so, this could result in differing levels of personality expression in relation to the NEO. For example, those who express higher levels of Conscientiousness may be more willing to engage in risk associated with social expectations being violated (e.g., item 4) and less likely to engage in risk associated with breaking the law (e.g., item 13). In sum, future research should incorporate a well-validated and reliable measure of risk-willingness into this paradigm. If no suitable alternative is available, the presently used measure should be more thoroughly tested to ensure results are not due to inconsistencies internal to the measure. It is also possible the NEO is ineffective for explicating personality bases of conforming to others’ risk-willingness judgments. The NEO was used in the 43 43 present research owing to its extensive validation, and based on the assumption that assessing sets of factor analytically derived traits would provide enhanced measurement sensitivity (cf., Funder, 2010). Yet perhaps other trait assessments would be more effective. Sensation Seeking is one such trait which may prove fruitful to future research. People high in Sensation Seeking are characterized by their “willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experiences” (Zuckerman, 1979, p. 10). Given this clear connection to risk-related action, perhaps sensation seeking would supersede restrictive effects of strong situationally induced social pressure. However, as mentioned earlier, it is also possible that strong preexisting links between a personality trait and risk- willingness might limit potential interaction with situational forces. Further testing is necessary to determine which of these outcomes occurs. The convenience sample of college students recruited for the present research was religiously and ethnically diverse, and Kosloff et al. (2016) found effects of personality moderating conformity using the NEO and this same subject pool. This suggests sampling issues are unlikely sufficient to explain the present results. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge limitations of the present sample, especially with regard to age. The sample obtained was young and showed little variation in age (M = 19.09, SD = 1.15). In light of prior conformity research, this may have influenced the present findings and surely limits their generalizability. As people age, they generally display lower levels of social conformity than their younger counterparts (Pasupathi, 1999). Further, the present sample was predominantly female, and levels of some Big 5 traits change over the lifespan, particularly among women (Neuroticism decreases, while Agreeableness and Conscientiousness generally increase; Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003). 44 44

In sum, further research is needed to determine the generalizability of the present outcomes, as well as any extensions conducted on their basis. Naturally, a single line of research cannot address all possible avenues of the complex relationship between personality and conformity. However, the present research suggests that continued integration of well-validated personality measures and impactful social psychological techniques may yield insights into the conforming personality.

Conclusion Testing for personality moderators of conformity built upon early foundations and explored a topic that has remained largely dormant since the 1950s. This study attempted to clarify this complex relationship. Early attempts to understand the ways personality and situational factors interact when producing conformity may have been inadequate due to the weaknesses of the personality measures used. Using modern and well-validated tools in attempting to replicate these classic studies may prove worthwhile (c.f. Carnahan & McFarland, 2007; Kosloff, 2016). Yet, in the present work, social pressure and personality did not interact to predict the extent of conformity. Evidence instead supported Mischel’s (1968) early claim that situational factors are stronger predictors of behavior than dispositional factors. Further research is warranted and necessary to establish whether elements of personality other than those presently assessed contribute to conforming expressions of risky behavioral intentions.

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APPENDICES 55 55

APPENDIX A: VIGNETTES 56 56

Vignette 1

Vignette 2

57 57 Vignette 3

Vignette 4

58 58 Vignette 5

Vignette 6

59 59 Vignette 7

Vignette 8

60 60 Vignette 9

Vignette 10

61 61 Vignette 11

Vignette 12

62 62 Vignette 13

APPENDIX B: PANAS 64 64

APPENDIX C: MORNINGNESS AND EVENINGNESS SCALE 66 66

MORNINGNESS AND EVENINGNESS

Instructions: Please read each question carefully before answering. Answer questions in numerical order. Please answer each question as honestly as possible.

1. Considering only your own “feeling best” rhythm, at what time would you get up if you were entirely free to plan your day? Please place an “X” at the appropriate point along the scale below.

A.M. 5------6------7------8------9------10------11------12

2. Considering only your own “feeling best” rhythm, at what time would you go to bed if you were entirely free to plan your evening? Please place an “X” at the appropriate point along the scale below.

P.M. 8------9------10------11------12------1------2------3

3. If there is a specific time at which you have to get up in the morning, to what extent are you dependent on being woken up by an alarm clock? _____ not at all dependent _____ slightly dependent _____ fairly dependent _____ very dependent

67 67

4. Assuming adequate environmental conditions, how easy do you find getting up in the morning? _____ not at all easy _____ not very easy _____ fairly easy _____ very easy

5. How alert do you feel during the first half hour after having woken in the mornings? _____ not at all alert _____ not very alert _____ fairly alert _____ very alert

6. How is your appetite during the first half hour after having woken in the mornings? _____ very poor _____ fairly poor _____ fairly good _____ very good

7. During the first half hour after having woken up in the morning, how tired do you feel? _____ very tired _____ fairly tired _____ fairly refreshed _____ very refreshed 68 68

8. When you have no commitments the next day, at what time do you go to bed compared to your usual bedtime? _____ seldom or never late _____ less than one hour later _____ one to two hours later _____ more than two hours later

9. You have decided to engage in some physical exercise. A friend suggests that you do this one hour twice a week and the best time for him is between 7 and 8 A.M. Bearing in mind nothing else but your own “feeling best” rhythm, how do you think you would perform? _____ Would be on good form _____ Would be on reasonable form _____ Would find it difficult _____ Would find it very difficult

10. At what time in the evening do you feel tired and, as a result, in need of sleep?

P.M. 8------9------10 ------11------12------1------2------3

11. You wish to be at peak performance for a test which you know is going to be mentally exhausting and lasting for two hours. You are entirely free to plan your day and considering only your own “feeling best” rhythm, which one of the four testing times would you choose? _____ 8 to 10 A.M. 69 69

_____ 11 A.M. to 1 P.M. _____ 3 to 5 P.M. _____ 7 to 9 P.M. 12. If you went to bed at 11 P.M., at what level of tiredness would you be? _____ Not at all tired _____ A little tired _____ Fairly tired _____ Very tired

13. For some reason you have gone to bed several hours later than usual, but there is no need to get up at any particular time the next morning. Which ONE of the following events are you most likely to experience? _____ Will wake up at usual time and will NOT fall asleep _____ Will wake up at usual time and will doze thereafter _____ Will wake up at usual time but will fall asleep again _____ Will NOT wake up until later than usual

14. One night you have to remain awake between 4 and 6 A.M. in order to carry out a night watch. You have no commitments the next day. Which ONE of the following alternatives will suit you best? _____ Would NOT go to bed until watch was over _____ Would take a nap before and sleep after _____ Would take a good sleep before and nap after _____ Would take ALL sleep before watch

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