ON THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF EMOTIONS IN GROUPS 269 rative.but not in they just described.The scale was reversed for use in the analyses this person would feel p nform ir sing a list of 26 affect scales (from conforming,as there respective emotion had been wn by the stionaire using principal facte sis showed that th etta&).which may motivate him or her to ructure wa y depende andanger.which weretw with anger na situation that this person perceived as competitiv that emerged co n by asking the optimal number of factors.Focusing on these tw Pin They wer Conformity was measured by asking people to which extent they onbach'sg =83)and the second as anger r=20 001) his measur notion cluste gated by averagin people rally reluct red using three items Tw of these items ("To wha group pres experienced during the experiment. oth ded) out the goal st formity to make it oint scales (from 1 not atall to ? competiti (Be &Noussair.2010)that is ultim the 3md5= e).The scale co ed of these item by conl would therefore ny effects of ma rity emotions on conformity pre individ ere mediated by perceived reiection res Method Participants. Sixty-gh participants Results unable to r groups consensus. an d of and 46 female participants M 22.11.range 18-50 years). h course credits or 7 eurd Overal.many situations that we described ritical inciden prompt. I and 2. oles here ctin a number of unrelated personality neasures.the de in which sked to describe as many detai anted a cheap car though,so we wouldn't have to worry abou cceptance/rejection. After participants had described the sit (ro SThe full list is jealousy.disappointm 1-rejected to 7-accepted)how they had felt in the situationconform in situations they perceive as cooperative, but not in situations that are perceived as competitive. We expected that when a deviant individual perceived the situation as cooperative, this person would feel pressure to conform in case the majority reacts with anger to their deviance. In competitive settings, on the other hand, an individual cannot show commitment to a group goal by conforming, as there are conflicting goals in the group. The majority’s anger may even signal that the individual is reaching his or her goals at the expense of the pursuit of other people’s goals (Lanzetta & Englis, 1989), which may motivate him or her to stay the course. Thus, we expected that a deviant individual would be less likely to feel the pressure to conform if the majority responded with anger in a situation that this person perceived as competitive. We investigated the role of the perceived cooperativeness of the situation by asking participants to recall a situation in which their opinion had differed from that of other group members. They were then asked to report the emotions expressed by the majority and to reflect on the type of situation in terms of cooperation/competition. Conformity was measured by asking people to which extent they experienced a pressure to conform in the situation. We preferred this measure over asking participants whether they actually con￾formed, because people are generally reluctant to overtly admit their conformity to a group. For instance, Asch’s (1956) partici￾pants blamed their conformity on their own vision, rather than on the group pressure experienced during the experiment. Further￾more, there is evidence that people distort their memories of an act of conformity to make it appear as though they initially agreed (Griffin & Buehler, 1993). We assumed that this pressure to conform would reflect the subjective experience of threat or anx￾iety (Berns, Capra, Moore, & Noussair, 2010) that is ultimately resolved by conforming to the group and that it would therefore be a good proxy of conformity in the situation. Finally, we tested whether any effects of majority emotions on conformity pressure were mediated by perceived rejection. Method Participants. Sixty-eight participants were recruited for a study on disagreement in groups. Four participants indicated that they were unable to recall and describe an incident in which their opinion had differed from a group’s consensus, and their data could therefore not be used. The final sample consisted of 18 male and 46 female participants (Mage
22.11, range 18 –50 years). They were compensated with course credits or 7 euro. Materials and procedure. Critical incident prompt. Upon arriving in the laboratory, participants were seated individually behind a computer, which was used for presenting all instructions and recording answers. After completing a number of unrelated personality measures, the critical incident prompt was displayed on screen. Participants were asked to recall an episode in which a group decision had to be made, and their opinion had differed from that of the group. They were asked to describe as many details of the situation as they could. Acceptance/rejection. After participants had described the sit￾uation, the experiment continued with the display of a prompt asking the participant to indicate on a bipolar 7-point scale (from 1
rejected to 7
accepted) how they had felt in the situation they just described. The scale was reversed for use in the analyses, such that higher scores indicate stronger feelings of rejection. Majority emotions. The emotions expressed by the majority were measured using a list of 26 affective states.5 The items were presented in random order, and the participant was asked to indi￾cate on 7-point scales (from 1
not at all to 7
very much) how much of the respective emotion had been shown by the majority. An initial attempt to reduce the number of emotions measured by this questionnaire using principal factor analysis showed that the factor structure was highly dependent on which items were in￾cluded in the analysis. Therefore, we restricted our analysis to the six items related to happiness and anger, which were two clusters that emerged consistently in all factor analyses. Both the point of inflexion in the scree plot and Kaiser’s criterion agreed on two as the optimal number of factors. Focusing on these two factors, maximum likelihood factor analysis using varimax rotation re￾sulted in a clear distinction between enthusiasm, happiness, con￾tentment, and amusement on the one hand and anger and irritation on the other (see Table 1). The first factor was labeled as happiness (Cronbach’s
.83), and the second as anger (r
.70, p  .001). The emotion clusters were aggregated by averaging. Cooperativeness. Perceived cooperativeness of the situation was measured using three items. Two of these items (“To what extent did you pursue personal goals that differed from the group’s goals,” and “To what extent did your goals conflict with the group’s goals,” both reverse coded) asked about the goal structure without directly referring to cooperation and competition and were answered on 7-point scales (from 1
not at all to 7
very much). A third item directly asked how cooperative or competitive the situation had been on a bipolar 5-point scale (1
competitive, 3
neutral, and 5
cooperative). The scale composed of these items was internally consistent (Cronbach’s
.68), and the average of these items was calculated after z-transforming the individual items to correct for the different response scales. Conformity pressure. At the end of the experiment, we asked participants to what extent they had felt pressure to change their opinion or behavior in line with the group (from 1
none at all to 7
very much). Results Only four of the 68 participants were unable to recall an instance in which their opinion had differed from the majority’s, which suggests that the kind of situation under investigation is quite common. We found that a broad variety of situations was reported. Overall, many situations resembled the situation that we described in the vignettes used in Studies 1 and 2. To give an impression of the kind of stories that our participants wrote, we give two exam￾ples here: We wanted to buy a car to go on vacation with. I wanted a somewhat more expensive car, so we could sell it for more or less the same value after our vacation. I also liked the luxury and comfort of a better car. And the risk of a car breakdown would be smaller as well. The others wanted a cheap car though, so we wouldn’t have to worry about 5 The full list is jealousy, disappointment, shock, suspicion, disgust, tense, anger, boredom, contempt, sorry, guilt, nervousness, enthusiasm, happiness, surprise, compassion, relaxation, contentment, fear, relief, irri￾tation, shame, amusement, schadenfreude, indifference, and interest. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. ON THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF EMOTIONS IN GROUPS 269