Sex-Relevance of Content and Influenceability

Abstract

Previous studies of conformity as a function of the sex-relevance of task content were criticized for not including appropriate control conditions. Experiment I used the original Sistrunk and McDavid questionnaire and obtained results suggesting that knowledge differences might have produced the effects they ascribed to conformity. In Experiment 2 a contemporary questionnaire was devised to assess the degree of conformity with a design that controlled for knowledge differences. Persons (266 males and 285 females) responded to statements that were either accompanied by a fictitious majority response or not. There was no overall sex difference in degree of conformity to the majority response. Rather, influence varied with item content: Males were influenced more with feminine, females more with masculine content. However, moderating content effects were relatively small compared with the majority influence across all content. Knowledge control conditions were suggested for studies of content effects in social influence settings.