Open AccessHow conformity can lead to polarised social behaviour
Author(s) -
Folco Panizza,
Alexander Vostroknutov,
Giorgio Coricelli
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos computational biology/plos computational biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.628
H-Index - 182
eISSN - 1553-7358
pISSN - 1553-734X
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009530
Subject(s) - prosocial behavior , conformity , normative , psychology , social psychology , task (project management) , phenomenon , norm (philosophy) , social learning , earnings , social influence , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , philosophy , physics , management , epistemology , quantum mechanics , political science , law , economics , pedagogy , business , accounting
Learning social behaviour of others strongly influences one’s own social attitudes. We compare several distinct explanations of this phenomenon, testing their predictions using computational modelling across four experimental conditions. In the experiment, participants chose repeatedly whether to pay for increasing (prosocial) or decreasing (antisocial) the earnings of an unknown other. Halfway through the task, participants predicted the choices of an extremely prosocial or antisocial agent (either a computer, a single participant, or a group of participants). Our analyses indicate that participants polarise their social attitude mainly due to normative expectations. Specifically, most participants conform to presumed demands by the authority (vertical influence), or because they learn that the observed human agents follow the norm very closely (horizontal influence).