GRISKEVICIUS ET AL eyeite nng on was split into a majority of2and a minority of ?Accordin Conformity on Objective Items o the present perspective.if a majority in a small group isno When topics were objective.it was predicted that a mate oul men lo conform more.A er of a minor n the m ting conditic lead 020 en,the Motive K Participant Sex interaction was not stati 2003:Campbell,2002).In large groups of people.a woman could unan conform more when the maj 2 imous.How ver.if the Discussion a m Despit the fact that this study used measuresdif- would influe 's an When t the was subjective.mating goals mating motives produced the icted inc otives would produc onconf ity for men and n g motives lead men to show inde only o tudies.th that are ctive.Whe s predicte s of the specific mental sets that automatically facilitate functional co Method Participants Study 3 exctly why mating motive ng motive should produce Design and Procedure d high 0 tus men (Barkow,1989:Baumeister&So Bu ven if that rity is o prefer ctive.and 2 of the item cede In fact.it would be rare and possibly disturbing r cedes.on subjective topics conceptually replicates the findings from Study 1. Conformity on Objective Items When topics were objective, it was predicted that a mate￾attraction prime would lead men and women to conform more. As seen in Figure 2, men and women both tended to conform more on the objective items in the mating condition compared to the con￾trol, F(1, 65)
5.16, p
.026, 2
.074. Although the mating prime increased conformity somewhat more for men than for women, the Motive Participant Sex interaction was not statis￾tically significant, F(1, 65)
3.54, p
.064. Thus, when topics were objective, a mate-attraction motive tended to generally pro￾duce an increase in conformity, although this increase was greater for men than women. Discussion Despite the fact that this study used conformity measures dif￾ferent from those in the initial study, the results of Study 2 conceptually replicated and extended the findings of Study 1. When the topic was subjective, mating goals led men to noncon￾form and led women to conform more. In contrast, when the topic was objective, mating motives produced the predicted increase in conformity for men and women, as being objectively wrong is unlikely to make a favorable impression on a romantic candidate. Thus, mating motives lead men to show independence only on topics that are subjective, when they do not risk the self￾presentational consequences of being proven wrong. Notably, the effects of the mating prime persisted although participants’ re￾sponses were ostensibly private. These findings further support the notion that priming fundamental social motives appears to activate specific mental sets that automatically facilitate functional cogni￾tions and behaviors. That is, a relevant audience— or even any audience— did not appear to be necessary to produce the effects. Study 3 Although the results from the first two studies provide prelim￾inary evidence indicating how fundamental social motives influ￾ence conformity, it is not fully clear exactly why mating motives produce the specific patterns of behavior. As discussed earlier, we hypothesized that, for men, a mating motive should produce non￾conformity when it enables men to be relatively unique and appear assertive and independent— desirable traits in male romantic part￾ners and high-status men (Barkow, 1989; Baumeister & Sommer, 1997; Buss, 2003). In larger groups, such as a group of over 100 people, a man could achieve relative uniqueness by going against the preferences of the majority, even if that majority is not unan￾imous. As in Study 2, a man who is 1 of 10 people to prefer a BMW can still appear relatively distinct if 100 other men prefer a Mercedes. In fact, it would be rare and possibly disturbing if everyone had the same exact preference in a large group. However, to be distinctive in a small group (e.g., 5 individuals), a man is likely to be highly sensitive to the degree of consensus on a given topic. That is, it is difficult to be distinct when a man is 1 of the 2 people who prefer a BMW, compared with 3 people who prefer a Mercedes. Note that in Study 1, in which groups consisted of 4 persons, mating motives led men to nonconform when the majority preference between two alternatives was unanimously one-sided. However, would men still have nonconformed if consensus opin￾ion was split into a majority of 2 and a minority of 1? According to the present perspective, if a majority in a small group is not unanimous, nonconformity is unlikely to enable a man effectively to appear unique or assertive; instead, the man may merely appear to be a follower of a minority of 1.2 For women, we hypothesized earlier that a mating motive would lead to more conformity because it would allow women to appear agreeable and as someone interested in fostering group cohesion— desirable traits in a female romantic partner (Barkow, 1989; Buss, 2003; Campbell, 2002). In large groups of people, a woman could appear agreeable by conforming with the majority even if that majority is not unanimous. However, just as for men, women in a small group are likely to be sensitive to the degree of consensus on a topic. In Study 1, for example, mating motives led women to conform more when the majority was unanimous. However, if the group was split into a majority of 2 and a minority of 1, going along with 2 people (and going against 1 person) is less successful at conveying agreeableness to the group members or fostering group cohesion. Study 3 tested how a mating motive would influence men’s and women’s conformity depending on whether the majority in a small group (5 people) was unanimous versus split. It was predicted that mating motives would produce nonconformity for men and pro￾duce conformity for women primarily when the majority was unanimous but not when it was split. In line with the first two studies, these outcomes were only predicted to occur on topics that were subjective. When topics were objective, it was predicted that mating motives would generally lead people to increase their conformity, especially when a small majority was unanimous, as this would be a much stronger indicator of a correct response (Insko, Smith, Alicke, Wade, & Taylor, 1985). Method Participants Two hundred fifteen participants (118 male, 97 female) were recruited from introductory psychology classes as partial fulfillment of their class requirement. As in the first two studies, participants came in groups and were seated at private computers. Design and Procedure In this study we used a 2 (participant sex) 2 (motive prime: mating vs. control) 2 (topic: subjective vs. objective) 2 (majority type: unani￾mous [4/0] vs. split [3/1]) mixed-factorial design. Participant sex and prime were between-participants factors, and topic and majority type were within-participants factors. The procedure was very similar to that of Study 2, except for several small changes. First, participants responded to 10 instead of 6 survey items. Of the 10 items, 4 were subjective, 4 were objective, and 2 of the items served as fillers. For the subjective items, the same 3 items from the previous study were used along with one new item: Would you prefer to 2 It is also consistent with the present perspective that if there were more than two options in such a situation, a mating motive may be effective at spurring men to select a third— or any other— option, which would enable them to stand out and assert their independence (see Santee & Maslach, 1982). 288 GRISKEVICIUS ET AL. 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.