By: Denise Lord, Abbey Moore, Jeffery Coffman, Lauren Lofgren, Giovanni Ellzey

The present study examined the likelihood that a person would conform their opinions on the type of soda based on the opinions of other individuals.

One factor between subject design with three levels (alone, one confederate, two confederates)

45 participants (34 females, 11 males)

Randomly assigned to one of three groups

Each participant was asked to taste two cups of soda, one being Coke and the other Pepsi. They were asked to distinguish which beverage was the cup with the dot on it. In the second and third conditions the confederates gave the wrong answer as to which beverage was in the cup with the dot on it. The experiment was aimed to see if the participant would conform to the opinion of the confederate regardless of their own opinion.

It was hypothesized that the number of confederates would increase the level of conformity to the confederate’s soda choice.

Article 1 Pepsi vs Coke: Labels, Not Tastes, Prevail Experiment 1◦ 60 subjects tasted soda from 2 cups, one marked L, the other

S. The same product was placed in both. Cups labeled S were overwhelmingly tasted better.

Experiment 2◦ 30 subjects were asked preference of Pepsi or Coke. They then

drank from a Pepsi bottle (containing Coke) and a Coke bottle (containing Pepsi). Participants were significantly influenced by the label not the taste.

Conclusion: A taste comparison of colas should avoid using labels

Letters of the alphabet can even influence product comparison, labels may have more powerful influence on product comparison than taste differences

Commitment, crime and the responsive behavior: effect of the commitment form and conformism

Study 1◦ At a bus stop, a first confederate put a bag down on the ground upon arriving and

immediately left to withdraw money from an ATM near by. Two male participants were present at the bus stop. In Study 1, the confederate said nothing (control), directly asked one participant to watch his bag (direct commitment), or asked all present to watch his bag (indirect commitment). About 30 seconds later, a male confederate walked up to the victim's bag, picked it up, and quickly walked away in the opposite direction of the victim. A total of 150 participants (50 per condition) were observed. It was found that 34% intervened in the control condition, 88% in the direct commitment condition, and 56% in the indirect commitment condition.

Study 2◦ 150 participants (50 per condition) were observed while two male confederates were

present at the bus stop with the instruction not to react to the theft. It was found that more intervention was found in the direct commitment condition (88%) than in the control condition (18%). However, the indirect commitment condition did not elicit higher intervention (22%).

Conclusion:◦ The purpose of the two studies presented here was to explore the relation between the

form of commitment used to prevent a crime and the moderating effect exerted by the number of passive observers of this crime. Results show people conformed to the behavior surrounding them in the control and indirect commitment conditions significantly differently than in the direct commitment conditions.

Conformity is a relatively simple concept that describes the phenomenon of behavior in accordance with socially accepted standards or rules.

A simple experiment was conducted to demonstrate this phenomenon with a class of introductory level psychology students to help them understand how we are impacted by social pressures. (Lawson, Haubner, & Bodle, 2013)

146 participants (92 females and 54 males)

Ages: 18-40

Purpose: increase the students’ awareness of conformity and social pressures and observe the results

Results: Overall the students agreed that other people’s behavior influences their own behavior and they conform to others when they are unsure of what to do in a social situation.

An online marketing experiment looked at social influence in online recommender systems and how people’s choices are changed by other’s recommendations. (Zhu & Huberman, 2014)

Experimental Design: 2 (baby pictures and loveseats) x 3 (short, long and control intervals) x 4 (ratio of opposing opinions to supporting opinions; 2:1, 5:1, 10:1, 20:1)

433 participants (173 women and 260 men) Results: the results show that people’s opinions are

significantly swayed by other people’s choices and the influence is stronger when the second decision is made sometime later rather than immediately.

The study also found that people seem more likely to change their opinions when facing a moderate versus large group of opposing opinions.

Demographics◦ 45 Participants were chosen at random to

participate in the study (15 participants for each condition)

◦ M(SD) age = 19.76(1.282)

◦ Median age = 20

◦ Mode age = 20

◦ The age range = 18-23.

Special Characteristics◦ All participants were UNCW students who were

located in Randall Library on the night of April 12, 2015.

◦ The majority of the students were female, 34 out of 45 (75.6%).

◦ In total, more of the participants made an incorrect selection verses a correct selection , 24 : 21.

Equipment◦ The experiment was preformed in the UNCW

Randall Library, in the group study room 1001

◦ The room had seven chairs and one large table which was used to set up the drinks on

◦ Three chairs were designated to the confederates and the participant while the other four chairs were used for the experimenters.

Testing materials ◦ For this experiment the experimenters used:

90 plastic cups

two for each participant

One liter of Coca-Cola

One liter of Pepsi

A roll of paper towels

in case of a spill

One sharpie

used to mark a dot on the cup were the Coca-Cola wad pored into

One trash bag

Testing Materials A laptop with the directions on how to perform the

experiment typed out onto a Microsoft Word document . The Word document read:

“How old are you?This is an experiment on differentiating Coke from Pepsi. After you have taken a sip of both cups, I will ask you to make a verbal distinction between the two drinks.Is Coke in the cup with the dot or is coke in the one without the dot?Is Pepsi in the cup with the dot or is Pepsi in the one with the dot?”

A laptop with a Microsoft Excel document

The Excel document was labeled across the top from left to right: Participant Number, Gender, Age, Condition: Number of Confederates, Correct or Incorrect.

Variables:◦ Independent- Number of Confederates◦ Dependent- Correct or incorrect identification of the

drink

Participants brought to testing room after accepting offer to participate

Blank cup filled with Pepsi and dotted cup filled with Coke was put in front of them

Experimenter asked the confederates first and then the participant which drink the dotted cup contained

After experiment was over the participants were thanked and debriefed

Univariate ANOVA was run on the data

Difference between the effects of each level of the independent variables returned a value of F(2,45)=1.909, p>.05

Number of

Confederates

n M (SD) 95% CI

None 15 1.60(.51) (1.32, 1.88)

One 15 1.67(.49) (1.40, 1.94)

Two 15 1.33(.49) (1.06, 1.60) 0.00

2.00

4.00

6.00

8.00

10.00

12.00

0 1 2

Nu

mber

of

Identi

ficati

ons

Number of Confederates

Number of Correct

Identifications

Number of

Incorrect

Identifications

Only 45 subjects

A lot of females

Mostly friends of researchers

Confederates didn’t completely look like subjects/location

Not everyone liked soda

Only male confederates

More subjects

Better way to make confederates look like subjects

Different Soda Brands

Different location and time