Final Draft ARP Paper

To Kill or Not to Kill: The Effects of Conformity on a Morally Ambiguous Decision 1

To Kill or Not to Kill:

The Effects of Conformity on a Morally Ambiguous Decision

Allison P. Nayder

Central College


Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine a relationship between the pressure to conform and

the decisions one makes in a morally ambiguous situation. Past research shows that people

conform as a way of feeling like they are part of the group (Asch, 1955; Taylor and Bloomfield,

2010). The current study put participants in a morally ambiguous situation and asked them to

make a decision to either kill or not kill, with both costs and benefits to each. Some were shown

normative statistics in an effort to induce conformity, while others we not. After, they responded

to several questionnaires measuring levels of morality, religiosity and social desirability.

We found that participants who were exposed to weak normative statistics decided to kill less

often than those exposed to strong normative statistics. As well, highly intrinsically religious

participants conformed less than those who were not, while morality and social desirability did

not predict participants’ decisions.


Whether we are using forks and knives to eat, buying the latest shoes or only ordering

one scoop of ice cream because nobody else ordered three, we conform to social norms and

pressures on a daily basis, often without the realization that we are doing so. In 1955,

psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated just how influential social pressure can be in decision

making. In a room of well-educated men, when asked a question with a very obviously correct

answer, 75% of participants answered at least one question incorrectly if the men before him also

did so in an effort to avoid social ostracism. The psychological power behind being accepted by

our peers is dangerously strong, and social norms can cause us to behave in a certain way,

regardless of the costs or benefits that may or may not ensue (Tayler and Bloomfield, 2010).

Some of psychology’s most infamous experiments including the Milgram experiment and

the Stanford Prison Study illustrate the power of conformity. In Philip Zimbardo’s prison study,

the participants whom he recruited were average college students who were expected to conform

to either a role as a prisoner or as a guard. However, they conformed so strongly to these roles

that those playing the guards caused serious psychological damage to those playing the prisoners

(Zimbardo, 1971). In Stanley Milgram’s shocking experiment, participants were asked to

distribute an electric shock to another man, in increasing volts, every time he answered a

question incorrectly. They continued to follow the instructions of the experimenter even through

their doubt and were eventually led to believe that they had shocked a man to death because they

were told to do so (Milgram, 1963). In both cases, participants in the studied conformed to

immoral behaviors but justified doing so because they had taken on a role that was “expected” of

them.

Another study found that those who show high levels of social desirability are more

likely to conform. In other words, people are often willing to sacrifice his or her own beliefs in


order to maintain in-group status (Fischer and Huddart, 2008). Because this phenomenon is so

strong, when weighing decisions on a cost to benefit scale, most often the social benefits of the

undesirable decision tends to outweigh the personal costs of the desirable decision.

Social Desirability and Conformity

Studies have shown that when people are not being watched or when there is a benefit to

not conforming, they conform less. This was especially evident in tasks that included budgeting

and strategy, as seen in the Dictator/Ultimatum Game (Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler, 1986)

and the Public Goods Game (Tayler and Bloomfield, 2010).

In Tayler and Bloomfield’s economics study, they found that participants were likely to

contribute more money to the social pot when the risk of their savings being audited increased.

Instead of being exposed as a person who did not equally contribute to society, they gave up

more of their own property. In other words, coming out on the winning end of a social dilemma

was more valuable than coming out on the winning end of an economic dilemma. The social

pressure to conform was much higher than their personal goals. However, when there was no

risk of being audited, a benefit to not conforming, participants acted in their own best interest.

This was likely due to the idea that they were not only able to break a social norm without being

noticed, but there was actually a reward for doing so- they were able to keep their money.

Dawes et al.(1977) set two standards for a social dilemma- first, the payoff for the bad

behavior is greater than the payoff for the good behavior. Second, if all members of society

engage in the bad behavior, then all members of society receive a lower payoff. They found that

in a social dilemma, people most often behave as they expect others to behave. In other words,

the more participants anticipated that others would engage in anti-social behavior, the more


likely they were to engage themselves and vice-versa. So, when the best path was unclear, they

looked to those around them in order to make the most socially desirably decision.

Moral Relativism

Throughout history, people have made decisions based on the decisions made by those

around them, and societies have helped the people living within them to form a set of morals

based on the way those around them behave. A group of people known as relativists believes that

morality is a “culturally conditioned response…and varies differently across time and place”

(Prinz, 2011). In other words, morals are a learned behavior rather than an inherent one. If this is

true, then morals, the things that we hold truest in our minds, may be swayed as a result of

changes within society. This raises the question, “can this change in belief be manipulated?”

In past centuries, certain groups of people have made life-altering choices because they

were able to justify them based on the norms of their society. For example, in the arctic regions,

infanticide was once a commonly accepted practice. Though another culture may not be able to

grasp the reasoning behind it, the Inuit tribes who were being forced to make the decision

understood that if children were not sacrificed, then their already low supply of resources would

run even lower. This would then limit the resources of the more productive members of society,

causing more harm than good to all (Prinz, 2011). If morals can be altered through legitimate

justification, then one might assume that they may be manipulated in other ways as well.

However, decisions based on personal norms tend to leave people the most satisfied (Taylor and

Bloomfield, 2010; Ripstein, 2006).

Conformity in Morally Ambiguous Situations

As children, we learn to make decisions with the help of our parents. Research has shown

that this joint decision making technique is ideal for development and functioning in children


(Lamborn et al., 1996; Steinberg, Elmen, & Mounts, 1989). From this, we gain a sense of both

confidence when making the correct choice and guidance when we are unsure. This also prepares

us for the unilateral decision-making that comes with adulthood (Wray-Lake, Crouter and

McHale, 2010).

In adulthood, however, we often find that what is moral and immoral is unclear. In

situations where the benefits of one choice outweigh the costs of another, the decision seems

obvious. What if, however, the costs of both situations are high and we must make a decision?

For example, the famous Trolley Dilemma paints a picture of a scenario where the best decision

is highly ambiguous. In this situation, a person must choose between letting a trolley continue

down its path where it will kill five people or changing the trolley’s course so that only one

person will be killed, but the other five remain safe (Thompson, 1985).

When faced with these morally ambiguous decisions, we often look to others for the best

answer. We as humans have an innate sense of needing to belong, and this has a sizeable

influence on the choices we make (Fischer and Huddart, 2008). In scenarios like the trolley

dilemma, regardless of the route we choose to take, we are hypothetically deciding to kill

someone (or many). In order to live with the guilt that is sure to follow this decision, we seek

justification of our actions and decisions (Prinz, 2011). This justification gives us the

gratification of knowing that we are not alone in the choices we made- we are still part of the

group. Is it possible that in morally ambiguous situations, we might regress to the comfort from

our middle adolescent, joint-decision making techniques that were practiced with our parents?

Current Study

Previous research has made it evident that humans are social creatures who look to others

for acceptance. As well, it is evident that overall, humans have a basic set of moral principles on


which they rely when making decisions. This study will look at the effects of social suggestion

on moral decision-making in individuals who have high or low levels of religiousness, morality

and social desirability.

Hypotheses

I hypothesize that participants who are exposed to strong normative statistics will

conform more compared to those who are exposed to weak normative statistics. I also predict

that those with high levels of morality and a strong sense of religiousness will conform less.

Finally, I predict that those who scored high on levels of social desirability will conform more.

Participants. 152 college-aged participants, 34 male, 87 female, were recruited via

Facebook, Twitter, and other various online forums to participate in this study. The majority of

participants studied in the U.S., but others also studied in Canada, England, The Netherlands,

Austria, India and Chile. Of these participants, 87 identified as Christian (Catholic, Protestant,

Methodist or Reformed), 3 identified as Muslim, 12 as Atheist, and 12 as agnostic or spiritual-

the others chose not to respond. Both the mean and median year in school for participants was 3.

Procedure Each participant completed this study on a computer or tablet via the

website, Qualtrics, and were randomly assigned into one of four categories. Participants were

directed to a vignette that read as follows:

You are part of a group of ecologists who live in a remote stretch of jungle. Your entire

group, which includes eight children, has been taken hostage by a group of paramilitary terrorists.

One of the terrorists takes a liking to you. He informs you that his leader intends to kill you and

the rest of the hostages the following morning.

He is willing to help you and the children escape, but as an act of good faith he wants you

to torture and kill one of your fellow hostages whom he does not like. If you refuse his offer, all

the hostages including the children and yourself will die. If you accept his offer, then the others

will die in the morning, but you and the eight children will escape.


In the first three conditions, participants were shown normative statistics stating that

20%, 50% or 80% of people agreed to kill the fellow hostage. Then, they were asked what they

would do in the situation, either kill or not kill. For all analyses except that measuring

religiousness, these conditions were collapsed into a weak conformity condition (control and

20% conformity) and a strong conformity condition (50% conformity and 80% conformity). In

the control condition, no statistics were shown. All participants were asked to rate how confident

they were in their decisions on a scale of 1 (absolutely uncertain) to 7 (absolutely certain).

Because the first dependent variable, kill or not kill, is dichotomous, participants’

responses to both questions were multiplied in order to calculate one, continuous dependent

variable. “Kill” was coded as “2” while “not kill” was coded as “1.” This new variable is known

in the current study as participants’ conformity score, and on a 1-14 point scale, we were allowed

to see how confident (a high score) or not confident (a low score) they were with the idea of

killing their fellow hostage. It should be noted that this was not a normal distribution, with over

66% of participants scoring a 7 or below on the conformity scale, M = 6.59, SD = 3.36.

Upon completion, participants answered a series of questionnaires including the Moral

Identity Scale (Aquino and Reed, 2002), measuring how morally or not morally driven they are,

the Religious Orientation Scale (Gorsuch and McPherson, 1989), The Short Forms of the

Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Ballard, 1992). These inventories had Cronbach’s

Alphas scores of .882, .861 and .237 respectively. Finally, participants filled out a demographics

form, asking about their age, gender, religion and other various demographics. At the conclusion

of the study, participants read a short debriefing statement.


Results

Correlations. A correlational analysis showed that there were many relationships

amongst variables (see Table 1). As morality, intrinsic and extrinsic personal religiousness, total

religiousness and age increased, conformity scores decreased. Morality increased with extrinsic

personal and total religiousness, and all types of religiousness were strongly correlated, as would

be expected. There was no significant relationship, however, between social desirability and any

other variables.

Table 1Correlations Table

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 81 Conformity Score -0.187 -0.204 -0.192 -0.154 -0.228 -0.085 -0.2672 Morality 0.164 0.21 0.155 0.196 0.087 0.0643 Intrinsic Religion 0.636 0.32 0.785 0.002 0.0374 Extrinsic Personal Religion 0.532 0.907 -0.048 -0.0555 Extrinsic Social Religion 0.723 0.097 0.0226 Total Religion -0.005 -0.0067 Social Desirability 0.128 Year in School

Normative Statistics. There was a marginally significant effect of conformity condition

on participant’s decision to kill, Χ2 (1, N= 152) = 3.224, p = .051. Those who were in the weak

conformity condition (control condition and the 20% conformity conditions) tended to kill less

often than those in the strong conformity condition (50% conformity and 80% conformity

condition) (See Figure 1).

Religiousness and Morality. There was a trend interaction between conformity condition

and intrinsic religiousness, such that R2 = .075, F(1,124) = 3.462, p = .065, of intrinsic religiosity

on how confident participants were in their decisions to kill. In other words, participants who

demonstrated high levels of intrinsic religiousness conformed less to normative statistics while


participants who demonstrated low levels of intrinsic religiousness conformed more to the

normative statistics (See Figure 2).

Extrinsic religiousness on a personal level, R2 = .056, F(1,124) = .749, p = .375, extrinsic

religiousness on a social level, R2 = .034, F(1,124) = .272, p = .603, and morality, R2 = .045,

F(1,129) = .541, p = .463 did not interact with conformity conditions to effect the strength of

participants’ conformity levels.

Discussion

It was hypothesized that participants would conform more to strong normative statistics,

participants with high levels of religiousness and morality would conform less, and those with a

strong desire to be socially desirable would conform more.

Of these hypotheses, the first hypothesis was the most strongly supported- there was a

trend effect of participant’s condition on levels of conformity. Participants in the strong

conformity conditions say they would kill more often than those in the weak conformity

condition.

Looking at the means, participants who were in the 50% conformity condition alone

killed more often than all other conditions including the 80% conformity condition. This may be

because 50% is not a majority, so participants were more comfortable responding in either

direction. We consider this to have been a limitation to our study. Initially we believed that not

exposing participants to any normative statistics would have allowed them to respond in an

unbiased manner. After consideration, however, it may have been that participants in the 50%

condition felt affirmation in their decisions to either kill or not kill, regardless of what direction

they chose compared to the control condition, where participants may have doubted their

decision to kill due to a lack of support or affirmation by others.


We also found that participants who scored high on levels of intrinsic religiousness were

less influenced by the conditions that they were in. Across all conditions, those who scored high

in levels of intrinsic religiousness had an average conformity score of under 6 on a 1-14 scale.

This means that these participants were either deciding to kill their fellow hostage, but were

fairly uncertain with their decision to do so, or they chose to not kill their fellow hostage and

were quite confident in their decision. On the other hand, those who scored low in intrinsic

religiousness scored up to just under an 8 on the same 1-14 scale for conformity levels. This

means that they had made the decision to kill, regardless of certainty in the 80% conformity

condition. This may be due to the idea that those who are religious for intrinsic reasons have a

better foundation for what they believe in. Rather than being concerned with the opinions of

others, they may be inherently more reliant on their own sense of right and wrong (Gamwell,

1993).

We did not, however, find that extrinsic religiousness or morality predicted whether or

not participants would conform to the normative statistics. We also did not find any relationship

between social desirability and conformity scores, as predicted. Further, we found that if the

relationship were significant, the results appeared in the direction opposite of what we would

have expected. That is, as social desirability increased, conformity scores decreased. This is

likely attributed to the fact that participants were told that their responses would be kept

confidential and anonymous. In other words, participants did not take any responsibility of their

responses. As past research shows, people are much less likely to conform when they are not

being watched (Kahneman et al., 1986). In turn, it is fair to believe that social desirability may

not play a role in the decisions people make in private, regardless of how strongly socially

desirable they may be, but this notion should be explored further.


One other explanation for our data not matching past research may be due to such a low

Cronbach Alpha for the social desirability measure in our sample. Although this particular

measure has been used in a number of past studies, the internal validity of it in the current study

was surprisingly low.

An unexpected finding was that participants age was negatively correlated to levels of

conformity, so as they grew older, they were less likely to kill their fellow hostage. This was not

anticipated, but may tell a bit about how we change over time. Participants who recorded that

they were first or second year students both made the decision to kill more often compared to

those who responded that they were third, fourth of fifth year students, all deciding to kill less

often than they decided to kill. This may be due to the fact that freshman and sophomores are

overcompensating for being younger. As a senior in high school, students are at the top of the

social pyramid and often feel a sense of power or entitlement with the knowledge that others

look up to them. It is possible that this either translates into their first years of college, or they

realize that once again, they are on the bottom of the ladder, having to begin working their way

up again. One study even suggest that most freshmen are not psychologically prepared for the

changes they face their freshman year, so they find ways to compensate in order to feel adequate

(Venezia and Jaeger, 2013).

Future Research. If this study were to be reconducted in the future, alterations to the

conditions may help experimenters better understand participant behavior. Rather than having a

control and a 50% conformity condition, it may be better to have three conditions with a control

condition (no statistics), a 10% conformity condition, and a 90% conformity condition in order to

ensure that one group sees a majority while the other sees a minority of people who believe their

actions are acceptable.


The participant’s calculated conformity scores may have also been more telling if the

variables were recoded differently. Instead of coding “kill” as “2” and “not kill” as “1” in SPSS,

it may be better to code “kill” as “1” and “not kill” as “-1.” In other words, 0 would be

completely neutral while -7 would allow researchers to see that participants were completely

confident in their decision to not kill and those with a score of 7 would prove that they decided to

kill their fellow hostage and were completely confident in their decision to do so. This would

give a more authentic depiction of participants’ conformity levels.

As well, there may be an advantage in allowing participants to believe that their

responses will be shared with others in order to better understand the roles social desirability

may have played. If those who scored high on social desirability scales thought that they may

have to take responsibility for their decisions, then it is safe to hypothesize that they would

conform to the majority in order to avoid any form of ostracism.

Social desirability can also be attributed to different social pressures. Some people may

have responded in socially desirable ways because they believed that it is truly what they would

do in the situation. This is known as self-deception. On the other hand, others may have

responded in a socially desirable way in order to maintain their good reputation. This is known

as self-preservation and as mentioned before, participants in this study were not concerned with

the idea of self-preservation because their responses were both anonymous and confidential.

However, future research may benefit from testing both roots of social desirability in order to

better understand what may be happening.

Others may also be interested in doing either a longitudinal study or looking at different

ages to compare to the college aged sample. Since we saw such a drastic change between first

years and fourth years, there may be a larger trend throughout a person’s life that has not been


looked into. Does this trend begin at childhood and continue throughout a person’s life? Or does

it peak at middle adult hood then decline or plateau? There is more to be explored here.

Conclusion

From this study, we now know that religiousness, specifically intrinsically motivated

religiousness, is a predictor of conformity and that people look to their peers for answers in

morally ambiguous situations. We can also assume that the urge to be socially desirable is much

weaker when we are in private compared to when we are being watched, although further

research is necessary to better understand this finding. As well, the need to conform seems to

decrease in our early 20s, suggesting that we may learn more in college than how to elegantly

write a research paper!


Weak Strong0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35 Would Not Kill Would Kill

Conformity Condition

Perc

ent o

f Par

ticip

ants

Figure 1. Participants’ decision to kill or not kill based on conformity condition.

Control 20% 50% 80%5.5

6

6.5

7

7.5

8 Low Religousness High Religousness

Conformity Condition

Con

form

ity S

core

Figure 2. The interaction between participants’ conformity condition and level of religiousness.

References


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https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/cognition

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