¹ For reviews of the research see especially McGuire, William J., “Personality and Susceptibility to Social Influence,” in Borgatta, E. F. and Lambert, W. W. (eds.), Handbook of Personality Theory and Research, (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968), pp. 1130–1187 Google Scholar; McGuire, William J., “The Nature of Attitudes and Attitude Change,” in Lindzey, Gardner, and Aronson, Elliot (eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology, 2nd ed. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968), Vol. 3, Chap. 21Google Scholar; Allen, Vernon L., “Situational Factors in Conformity,” in Berkowitz, Leonard (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 2 (New York: Academic Press, 1965), pp. 133–176 Google Scholar; Berg, I. A. and Bass, B. M. (eds), Conformity and Deviation, (New York: Harper, 1962)Google Scholar; Cohen, Arthur R., Attitude Change and Social Influence, (New York: Basic Books, 1964)Google Scholar; Hovland, Carl I. and Janis, Irving L. (eds.), Personality and Persuasibility, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959)Google Scholar. See also Hollander, E. P. and Willis, R. H., “Some Current Issues in the Psychology of Conformity and Non-Conformity,” Psychological Bulletin, 68 (1967), 62–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² See, for example, Asch, Solomon E., “Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments,” in Guetzkow, Harold (ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men, (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press, 1951), pp. 177–190 Google Scholar; McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility,” loc. cit.; Hovland and Janis, Personality and Persuasibility; Crutchfield, Richard S., “Conformity and Character,” American Psychologist, 10 (1955), 191–198 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barron, Frank, “Some Personality Correlates of Independence of Judgment,” Journal of Personality, 21 (03, 1953), 287–297 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Cf. McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility,” op. cit., pp. 1131–1136.

⁴ Leading examples of this experimental tradition are Asch, Solomon E., “Studies in Independence and Conformity: I. A Minority of One against a Unanimous Majority,” Psychological Monographs, 70 (No. 9, 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sherif, Muzafer, “Group Influence upon the Formation of Norms and Attitudes,” in Maccoby, Eleanor E. et al. (eds.), Readings in Social Psychology, 3rd ed., (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1958), pp. 219–232 Google Scholar; Crutchfield, op. cit.

⁵ The major research in this field has been conducted by the “Yale School” under the direction of Carl I. Hovland. Three illustrative publications are Hovland, Carl I. et. al., Communication and Persuasion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953)Google Scholar; Hovland, Carl I. et al., The Order of Presentation in Persuasion, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950)Google Scholar; Hovland and Janis, Personality and Persuasibility.

⁶ Hilgard, E. R., Hypnotic Susceptibility, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1965)Google ScholarPubMed; McGuire, loc. cit.

⁷ See also Tuddenham, R. D., “Correlates of Yielding to a Distorted Group Norm,” Journal of Personality, 27 (1959), pp. 272–284 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Di Vesta, Francis and Cox, D., “Some Dispositional Correlates of Conformity Behavior,” Journal of Social Psychology, 52 (1960), pp. 259–268 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crutchfield, “Conformity and Character,” op. cit.; Crutchfield, , “Detrimental Effects of Conformity Pressures on Creative Thinking,” Psychologische Beitrage, 6 (1962), 463–471 Google Scholar; Crutchfield, , “Independent Thought in a Conformist's World,” 1962 Google Scholar, mimeographed; Crutchfield, , “Personal and Situational Factors in Conformity to Group Pressure,” 1957, mimeographedGoogle Scholar; Barron, Frank, “The Psychology of Imagination,” Scientific American (09, 1958)Google Scholar.

⁸ Crutchfield, “Conformity and Character,” loc. cit.; Barron, “The Psychology of Imagination,” loc. cit.; Tuddenham, “Correlates of Yielding,” loc. cit.; Hoffman, M. L., “Some Psychodynamic Factors in Compulsive Conformity,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48 (1953), 383–393 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Kelman, H. C., “Effects of Success and Failure on Suggestibility in the Autokinetic Situation,” 45 (1950), 267–285 Google ScholarPubMed; Di Vesta and Cox, op. cit.; Levy, Leo, “A Study of Some Personality Attributes of Independents and Conformers,” Diss. Abst., 19 (1959), p. 1823 Google Scholar.

⁹ Crutchfield, “Conformity and Character;” Tuddenham, “Correlates of Yielding;” Hoffman, “Some Psychodynamic Factors;” Beloff, Halla, “Two Forms of Social Conformity: Acquiescence and Conventionality,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 56 (1958), 99–104 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Wells, W. et al, “Conformity Pressure and Authoritarian Personality,” Journal of Psychology, 42 (1956), 133–136 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marlow, David, “Some Personality and Behavioral Correlates of Conformity,” Diss. Abst., 20 (1959), 2388–2399 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Di Vesta and Cox, op. cit.; Marlow, op. cit.; Kelman, op. cit.; Crutchfield, “Conformity and Character;” Leo Levy, op. cit.; Hardy, K. R., “Determinants of Conformity and Attitude Change,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 54 (1957), 289–294 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Linton, H. B., “Dependence on External Influence: Correlates in Perception, Attitudes and Judgment,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51 (1955), 502–507 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bray, D. W., “The Prediction of Behavior from Two Attitude Scales,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 45 (1950), 64–84 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Mouton, J. S. et al., “The Relationship Between Frequency of Yielding and the Disclosure of Personal Identity,” Journal of Personality, 24 (1956), 339–347 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Tuddenham, op. cit.

¹¹ Janis, Irving L., “Personality Correlates of Susceptibility to Persuasion,” Journal of Personality, 22 (1954), 504–518 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Janis, Irving L., “Anxiety Indices Related to Susceptibility to Persuasion,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51 (1955), 663–667 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Janis, Irving L. and Rife, Donald, “Persuasibility and Emotional Disorder,” in Hovland, Carl I., and Janis, Irving L. (eds.), Personality and Persuasibility, Chap. 6Google Scholar; Arthur R. Cohen, “Some Implications of Self-Esteem for Social Influence,” ibid., Chap. 5.

¹² Gollob, A. F. and Dittes, James E., “Effects of Manipulated Self-Esteem on Persuasibility Depending on Threat and Complexity of Communication,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2 (1965), 195–201 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nisbett, Richard and Gordon, Andrew, “Self-Esteem and Susceptibility to Social Influence,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5 (1967), 268–276 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Silverman, Owen, Ford, Leroy H. Jr., and Morganti, John B., “Inter-related Effects of Social Desirability, Sex, Self-Esteem, and Complexity of Argument on Persuasibility,” Journal of Personality, 34 (1966), 555–568 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leventhal, and Perloe, , “A Relationship between Self-Esteem and Persuasibility,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 64 (1962), 385–388 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Dabbs, James M. Jr., “Self-Esteem, Communicator Characteristics and Attitude Change,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 69 (1964), 173–181 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson, Homer H., Torcivia, James M., and Poprick, Mary Ann, “Effects of Source Credibility on a Relationship between Authoritarianism and Attitude Change,” Journal of Personality and Social Psycology, 9 (1968), 179–183 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

¹³ For a discussion of some of the inconclusive and contradictory results see McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility,” loc. cit.; Hovland and Janis, Personality and Persuasibility, Chap. 11. See also Appley, Mortimer H. and Moeller, George, “Conformity Behavior and Personality Variables in College Women,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66 (1963), 284–290 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tuddenham, Richard D., “Studies in Conformity and Yielding: II. The Influences Upon a Judgment of a Grossly Distorted Norm,” Technical Report No. 2, 1957, University of California, Berkeley, N. R. 170–259 Google Scholar; Halla Beloff, op. cit.; Endler, N. S., “Conformity Analyzed and Related to Personality,” Journal of Social Psychology, 53 (1961), 271–283 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steiner, Ivan D., “Personality and the Resolution of Interpersonal Disagreements,” in Maher, B. (ed.), Progress in Experimental Personality Research, Vol. 3, (New York: Academic Press, 1966), pp. 195–239 Google Scholar; Homer H. Johnson et al., op. cit.; Johnson, Homer H. and Steiner, Ivan D., “Some Effects of Discrepancy Levels on Relationships between Authoritarianism and Conformity,” Journal of Social Psychology, 73 (1967), pp. 199–205 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steiner, Ivan D. and Vannoy, Joseph S., “Personality Correlates of Two Types of Conformity Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 (1964), 307–315 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Barocas, Ralph and Gorlow, Leon, “Self-Report, Personality Measurement, and Conformity Behavior,” Journal of Social Psychology, 71 (1967), 227–234 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

¹⁴ Hovland, and Janis, , Personality and Persuasibility, p. 225 Google Scholar.

¹⁵ McGuire, William J., “Personality and Susceptibility,” see especially pp. 1143–1148 Google Scholar.

¹⁶ See for example, Endler, Norman S. and Hoy, Elizabeth, “Conformity as Related to Reinforcement and Social Pressure,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7 (1967), 197–202 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ We are not, of course, claiming that the laboratory context is unreal, synthetic, or in any other way inappropriate to the study of conformity and persuasibility. We are saying, rather, that the findings turned up in a laboratory context, however valid for that context, may not take the same form or hold with the same force in some situations encountered in the larger society. As we shall see, the same principles can apply in both contexts, but manifest themselves quite differently.

¹⁸ Kelman, H. C., “Compliance, Identification, and Internalization: Three Processes of Attitude Change,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2 (1958), 51–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abelson, Robert P. and Lesser, Gerald L., “The Measurement of Persuasibility in Children,” in Hovland, and Janis, , Personality and Persuasibility, Chap. 7Google Scholar; Bert T. King, “Relationships between Susceptibility to Opinion Change and Child-rearing Practices,” op. cit., Chap. 10; Harper, B. W. and Tuddenham, Richard D., “The Sociometric Composition of the Group as a Determinant of Yielding to a Distorted Norm,” Journal of Psychology, 58 (1964), 307–311 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sears, R. R., “Dependency Motivation,” in Jones, M. R. (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), pp. 25–64 Google Scholar; McGuire, op. cit., especially pp. 1141–1142.

¹⁹ Nahcmow, Lucille and Bennett, Ruth, “Conformity, Persuasibility and Counternormative Persuasion,” Sociometry, 30 (1967), 14–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kelly, H. H. and Volkart, E. H., “The Resistance to Change of Group Anchored Attitudes,” American Sociological Review, 17 (1952), 453–465 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ We are, of course, aware that many who deviate from society's values will conform to the values of their respective subcultures. Correspondence to national norms, thus, is only one of several ways by which one might assess conformity to political beliefs in the society. For some purposes it may not even be the most interesting way. Except for a crude categoric grouping by level of education (see below), we could not, in the present context, analyze the responses of each individual with respect to the several substrata that might be relevant to his political beliefs. We have, nevertheless, investigated conformity and deviation within certain political subcultures, e.g., conformity to party beliefs among the active members of the Democratic and Republican parties, and will report findings in a later publication. There is a depressing paucity of research on conformity and deviation within various political subcultures, a gap which we hope future investigators will soon fill.

²¹ Krech, David, Crutchfield, Richard S., and Ballachey, E. L., Individual in Society, New York (1962), p. 507 Google Scholar.

²² Many of the items came from a battery of personality and attitude scales jointly developed by Paul E. Meehl, Kenneth E. Clark, and Herbert McClosky for earlier surveys of political belief, affiliation, and participation.

²³ To this end we decreed that no more than two items could be drawn from the same attitude scale; as it worked out, the items in each of the indices came from at least 20 different scales. It also turned out that the norms selected for use in the final measure were widely accepted by adults not only at different educational levels but also in different age groups and in different size communities. In the non-college sample, conformity to the national norms was higher among younger people than among older, and higher among residents of larger communities than smaller—results that are consonant with the findings reported below. Among those who have attended college, however, the correlations between age, size of community, and conformity with national norms are mixed and inconclusive—which is to say that the response to these values is more homogeneous among the college-educated.

²⁴ The nature and validation of these scales has been set forth in earlier papers. See, for example, McClosky, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” this Review 58 (06 1964)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, Hoffman, Paul J., and O'Hara, Rosemary, “Issue Conflict and Consensus among Party Leaders and Followers,” this Review, 60 (06 1960)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert and Schaar, John H., “Psychological Dimensions of Anomy,” American Sociological Review (02 1965)Google Scholar; Gough, Harrison, McClosky, Herbert, and Meehl, Paul E., “A Personality Scale for Social Responsibility,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 47 (01 1952)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

²⁵ McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility,” op. cit.

²⁶ Irving L. Janis and Carl I. Hovland, “Postscript: Theoretical Categories for Analyzing Individual Differences,” in Hovland and Janis, op. cit., pp. 258–259.

²⁷ Carl I. Hovland and Irving L. Janis, “Summary and Implications for Future Research,” in Hovland and Janis, op. cit., p. 237; Murphy, Gardner, et al., Experimental Social Psychology, (New York and London: Harper, 1937), p. 930 Google Scholar; Hovland, Carl I. et al., Communication and Persuasion, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), pp. 181–184 Google Scholar.

²⁸ William J. McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility,” op. cit., pp. 1141–1142.

²⁹ In the Minnesota study, the Agree and Disagree items in the Conformity index are closely balanced out. These results, therefore, cannot be interpreted as an artifact of response set. Furthermore, in the national study, this result is achieved despite the bias in the Conformity index in the opposite direction, i.e. it contains 16 Agree and 11 Disagree items. Hence, other things being equal, the Conformers might be expected to score higher than the Deviants on Acquiescence, but, in keeping with our prediction, they score lower.

³⁰ Since some of the items used in the Conformity index were taken from the scales measuring attitudes toward these values, the relation between conformity-deviation and these attitudes scales partly reflects overlapping item content. However, the differences between conformers and deviants on these and other attitude measures cited in the paragraph are larger than could be accounted for by item overlap alone.

³¹ See, for example, William J. McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility to Social Influence,” op. cit., pp. 1142–1143. For a recent review of the relation between anxiety and learning generally, see Spence, Janet Taylor and Spence, Kenneth W., “The Motivational Components of Manifest Anxiety: Drive and Drive Stimuli,” in Spielberger, Charles D. (ed.), Anxiety and Behavior, (New York: Academic Press, 1966), pp. 21–26 Google Scholar; and Charles D. Spielberger, “The Effects of Anxiety on Complex Learning and Academic Achievement,” in Spielberger, op. cit.; Sarason, S., Davidson, K., Lighthall, F., Waite, R., and Ruebush, B., Anxiety in Elementary School Children, (New York: Wiley, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² See, for example, Rosenberg, Morris, Society and the Adolescent Self-Image, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coopersmith, Stanley, “Studies in Self-Esteem,” Scientific American (02 1968), 96–106 Google Scholar, and The Antecedents of Self-Esteem, (London: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1967)Google ScholarPubMed.

³³ McGuire, “Personality and Susceptibility to Influence,” loc. cit.

³⁴ Crutchfield, “Conformity and Character,” loc. cit.

³⁵ Linton, Harriet and Graham, Elaine, “Personality Correlates of Persuasibility,” in Hovland, and Janis, , Personality and Persuasibility, pp. 69–101 Google Scholar.

³⁶ See, for example, Homer H. Johnson et al., “Effects of Source Credibility,” op. cit.

³⁷ Wise, Walter and Fine, B. J., “The Effect of Induced Aggressiveness on Opinion Change,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52 (1956), 109–111 Google Scholar.

³⁸ Janis and Hovland, “Postscript,” op. cit., p. 257.

³⁹ McClosky, Herbert, Political Inquiry, (New York: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 74 and 87 Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ McClosky, ibid., Chaps. 2 and 3.

⁴¹ Cf. Converse, Philip E., “Attitudes vs. Non-Attitudes: Continuation of a Dialogue,” paper read at Seventh International Congress of Psychology, Washington, D.C., 1963, (mimeo)Google Scholar.

⁴² Similar correlation patterns have also emerged from our study of deviation and conformity among Democratic and Republican party leaders toward the dominant beliefs of their respective parties. For a preliminary report of these findings, see “The Influence of Personality on Political and Social Attitudes,” Mental Health Program Reports—3, National Institute of Mental Health, Chevy Chase, Maryland, 01, 1968, pp. 105–106 Google Scholar.

⁴³ Converse, loc. cit.

⁴⁴ We have chosen the Minnesota, rather than the national survey for this test, partly because it contains all the scales considered in the earlier tables; partly because it includes the Awareness scale, which was omitted from the national survey; and partly because the numbers of Agree and Disagree items in its Conformity index were more closely balanced.

⁴⁵ For a recent study of one such deviant subculture, see Whittaker, David and Watts, William A., “Personality Characteristics of a Nonconformist Youth Subculture: A Study of the Berkeley Non-Student,” Journal of Social Issues, 25 (1969), 65–89 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The members of this special, rather exotic, but by no means homogeneous community resemble our deviants in certain respects (e.g. they are, compared with enrolled students, more “socio-emotionally maladjusted,” alienated, anomic, personally less integrated, express lower self-esteem and greater anxiety, etc.); but they differ in important other respects (e.g. they are more autonomous, freer in their impulse expression, and have a more experimental, intellectual, and complex orientation toward social experience.)

⁴⁶ Support for this interpretation may be inferred from a newly published study by Gould, Laurence J., “Conformity and Marginality: Two Faces of Alienation,” Journal of Social Issues, 25 (1969), 39–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gould finds that the highly alienated (who closely resemble our deviants, e.g., more acquiescent, more suspicious, more expressed pathology, less self-esteem, and, of course, more alienated) also conform more in an Asch-type experiment. They also exhibit less curiosity about the reasons for their own judgments and those of the majority, “are less sensitive to the feelings of others [and] are less likely to be ‘tuned in’ to the more subtle and informal norms in any given social situation.” See also Seeman, Melvin, “An Experimental Study of Alienation and Social Learning,” American Journal of Sociology, 49 (1963), 270–284 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.