The effect of specific emotions on conformity

Abstract

Various factors can impact the level to which people conform to others. An important, yet unanswered question is how emotions could influence conformity levels. We predicted that specific emotions, which embody an underlying appraisal of uncertainty about the world, would lead people to feel more uncertain and subsequently more susceptible to others? influence. To test this hypothesis, participants (N = 78) induced to feel sad, happy or angry had to perform a highly ambiguous numeric estimation task. In half of the trials, participants were presented with additional estimates ostensibly provided by three other individuals, and were left free to use or disregard them when completing the task. As expected, participants in the sadness condition (an emotion associated with a low certainty appraisal) showed more conformity than those in the anger or happiness conditions (emotions associated with a high certainty appraisal). Taken together, our findings suggest that being in an emotional state characterized by uncertainty can increase people?s sensitivity to others? informational influences resulting in a higher level of conformity.