Conformity--defined here by the fact that an individual displays a particular behavior because it is the most frequent the individual witnessed in others--has long been recognized by social psychologists as one of the main categories of social influence. Surprisingly, it is only recently that conformity has become an active topic in animal and comparative biology. As in any new and rapidly grow...

In recent years, an increasing number of studies has investigated majority influence in nonhuman animals. However, due to both terminological and methodological issues, evidence for conformity in nonhuman animals is scarce and controversial. Preliminary evidence suggests that wild birds, wild monkeys, and fish show conformity, that is, forgoing personal information in order to copy the majority...

Is conformity amongst similar individuals consistent with self-interested behavior? We consider a model of incomplete information in which each player receives a signal, interpreted as an allocation to a role, and can make his action choice conditional on his role. Our main result demonstrates that ‘near to’ any correlated equilibrium is an approximate correlated equilibrium ‘with conformity’ —...

This review covers recent developments in the social influence literature, focusing primarily on compliance and conformity research published between 1997 and 2002. The principles and processes underlying a target's susceptibility to outside influences are considered in light of three goals fundamental to rewarding human functioning. Specifically, targets are motivated to form accurate percepti...

Introduction Nature and Formation of Groups Groupthink (Box 7.1) Type of Groups The Minimal Group Paradigm Experiments (Box 7.2) Influence of Group on Individual Behaviour Social Loafing Group Polarisation Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience The Autokinetic Effect (Box 7.3) Group Pressure and Conformity : The Asch Experiment (Box 7.4) Cooperation and Competition Sherif’s Summer Camp Experimen...

Humans are characterized by an extreme dependence on culturally transmitted information and recent formal theory predicts that natural selection should favor adaptive learning strategies that facilitate effective copying and decision making. One strategy that has attracted particular attention is conformist transmission, defined as the disproportionately likely adoption of the most common varia...

Scientific honesty in scientific publication is critical for scientific advancement, but dishonesty is commonly and increasingly observed in the forms of misconduct and other questionable practices. Focusing on dishonest conformity in peer review, in which authors reluctantly obey referees’ instructions in order to have their papers accepted even if the instructions contradict the author’s scie...