Popular Delusions: How Social Conformity Molds Society and Polit ...

Early research on conformity focused on how individuals were affected by others in small groups. This built a strong basis for understanding conformity, but it did not go far toward explaining the effects of conformity on society at large. In the 1990s, however, research broadened to include the response of individuals to important social norms, factors that strengthen or weaken the response, and the impact on society.

One of the first principles learned is that people are more likely to conform to a norm when they are prompted or reminded about it.³³ People are reminded when they hear messages about doing the right thing and when they see others following a norm. If people see their neighbors recycling, they are more likely to recycle their own waste. The opposite can happen, too, when people fail to conform to an important norm. If people think their neighbors are cheating on their income taxes, some might be more likely to do that themselves. Often a social norm is established simply by the behavior of others; the norm is more of a custom than an ethical principle that most people subscribe to. Fashions and fads are prime examples of this. There are no ethical issues in the width of men’s ties, but one still might feel social pressure to wear the right size. As a rule, the more people who are doing something, the more likely will others follow along.³⁴

Another important principle is that people are fairly consistent in how they respond to important social norms.³⁵ This applies to individuals as well as groups, but it does not mean that everyone conforms equally. If a person, trying to be a good citizen, usually votes in every election, that same person is also more likely to give to charities, serve on a jury, and obey the law. Chapters 3 and 4 show how this plays out.

A third principle connects the first two. If someone is prompted about a social norm, not only are they more likely to conform to that one, but also they will be more likely to conform to other norms at the same time.³⁶ The more similar the norms are, the stronger is the transfer effect or spillover from the first norm to others. These three principles combine in society to spread a dense web of conformity and social predictability from one person to another across many types of social behavior.