226 HODGES.MEAGHER.NORTON.McBAIN.AND SROUBEK agre 022.p make the Finally the two ite sible he ugh bout whether I had the not to conform to the eers in fac 5.76)felt like they were in ht th ma greers (M 43.9 tha rather tha g when I wa a bad po on to see cle 2.91)a 44)=0.06. 96.but therew a significant differe e of ces about how often to disagree or urther eviden of participants'trust in the integrity of the situ Results and Discussion rectly by A and B(17.8 out 1).By contrast.their mea The distr ng a ()( nno ce) 42=634.p<.01 The mot on position 6 order of s(5 first vs.6 first),and .nallwo-way 5740r 5.14) way n ontrast.indexes of Ind M 331 2.67)e s at Position 6 (M of 9 pe and Dis self- hental hypotheses did not have an effect on disagr f va e(MANOVA)o Position 6.30.2%were incorrect,disagn g answers.which i igure 3.The figure presents dexes c 1.76 nd Pr he on highlighted by valucs-pragmatics theory.while the scond Distribution of Disagreements and Percentages per Participan e at Differing Positions in Experiment 2 for these ns is as follow Disagreement Position 5(54.3%) cople are a that they (truthfully)cannot personally see the the demands of truthfulnessare ted to be more likely to for motivated to c about others would lead one to ty. ever tha 2.72 0.35 Note. in which would tend to yield HowTwo items indexed beliefs about experimenter expectations: (a) “I thought the experimenter wanted me to agree with the other people in the group, especially if they were in a better position than me,” and (b) “I thought the experimenter wanted me to make the best guess I could about what I saw, even if it was incorrect.” Finally, there were two items posing possible hypotheses about the experiment, one related to courage (“I thought that, although the experiment appeared to be about visual perception, it was really about whether I had the courage not to conform to the answers of the others”) and the other related to humility (“I thought that the experiment was less about what I could see and more about whether I had the humility to depend on others, rather than trying to “do my own thing” when I was in a bad position to see clearly”). We had no explicit expectations about how much agreement these four items might attract, but we thought none would bear a close relation with participants’ choices about how often to disagree or agree with A and B’s answers. Results and Discussion Trust, dilemma, and going beyond correctness. The distri￾bution of agreeing answers for Positions 5 (can see) and 6 (cannot see) is shown in Table 3. To assess the influence of the experi￾mental manipulations, frequency of disagreements was regressed on position (5 vs. 6), order of positions (5 first vs. 6 first), and experimenter (informed vs. uninformed) using a mixed-effects, zero-inflated negative binomial regression, including all two-way and three-way interactions. The only significant effect was a main effect for position (b 1.04, Wald 2 34.69, p  .001): Disagreements at Position 6 (M 2.72 of 9 possible) were significantly greater than at Position 5 (M 0.35 of 9 possible). The lack of any experimenter effects indicates that knowledge of experimental hypotheses did not have an effect on disagreeing answers given at Position 6. There were no order effects either, indicating that the SFI effect was not moderated by the first position in which participants sat. As predicted, a sizeable and significant SFI effect occurred at Position 6: Of answers given at Position 6, 30.2% were incorrect, disagreeing answers, which is significantly different from the expected value of zero (b 1.76, Wald 2 158.76, p  .001). In contrast, disagreeing answers at Position 5 (M 3.86%) did not significantly differ from zero (b 0.22, p .60). Twenty-five participants (54.3%) always agreed (Agreers) with A and B while sitting at Position 6, while 21 participants (45.7%) disagreed sometimes (Disagreers), making up their own incorrect answers. As predicted, participants strongly endorsed the Dilemma index. It is important to note that this was not limited to Dis￾agreers; in fact, Agreers (M 5.76) felt like they were in a dilemma as much as Disagreers (M 5.43), t(44) 0.67, p .50. Analyses of self-report measures revealed that participants showed high levels of Trust (M 6.67 out of 7), and low levels of Suspicion (M 2.91) about the other participants and the task. There was no difference between Agreers and Disagreers on Trust, t(44) 0.06, p .96, but there was a significant difference on Suspicion, with Disagreers (M 2.14) actually expressing less suspicion than Agreers (M 3.56), t(44) 2.29, p .027. Further evidence of participants’ trust in the integrity of the situ￾ation is provided by their estimates of questions answered cor￾rectly by A and B (M 17.8 out 18). By contrast, their mean estimate of questions they answered correctly at Position 6 was 4.9 (out of 9), much lower than their estimate for Position 5 (M 8.6), t(42) 6.34, p  .001. Truthfulness, social solidarity, and pragmatics. The moti￾vational indexes with which participants most agreed were, in order, Truthfulness (M 5.74 out of 7), Correctness (M 5.14), Social Solidarity (M 5.08), and Pragmatics (M 4.25). By contrast, indexes of Independence (M 3.31) and Agreement (M 2.67) received ratings indicating a lack of agreement, if one assumes that the midpoint of the scale, 4, is neutral. In order to compare Agreers and Disagreers’ self-reports regarding these mo￾tivational indexes, we conducted a 2 (level of agreement: Agreers vs. Disagreers)
2 (order)
2 (experimenter) multivariate anal￾ysis of variance (MANOVA) on all indexes. No significant order or experimenter effects were found for any of the indexes. Thus, we focused on direct comparisons of three sets of means presented in Figure 3. The figure presents comparisons between indexes of Truthfulness and Correctness, Social Solidarity and Agreement, and Pragmatics and Independence. The first index in each pair is the one highlighted by values-pragmatics theory, while the second in each pair addresses concerns traditionally considered as moti￾vating conformity (Agreement, Correctness) or nonconformity (In￾dependence). The reason for these specific comparisons is as follows: First, Truthfulness is contrasted with Correctness because, ordinarily, being motivated to be truthful implies wanting to give the correct (i.e., true) answer. However, in the context of the SFI situation, people are aware that they (truthfully) cannot personally see the correct answer. Thus, participants who are particularly sensitive to the demands of truthfulness are expected to be more likely to forgo correctness in order to express the truth of their ignorance. Second, Social Solidarity is compared with Agreement because, ordinarily, being motivated to care about others would lead one to expect agreement. Social solidarity, however, involves more than simply agreeing with others and instead entails playing one’s role to do what is most helpful for the group. Third, Pragmatics is juxtaposed with Independence because, in the SFI situation, Pragmatics tends to encourage making a unique, appropriate contribution to the task, which would tend to yield occasional disagreeing answers. How￾Table 3 Distribution of Disagreements and Percentages per Participant at Differing Positions in Experiment 2 Disagreements Position 6 Position 5 0 25 (54.3%) 35 (76.1%) 1 3 (6.5%) 7 (15.2%) 2 2 (4.3%) 3 (6.5%) 3 2 (4.3%) 1 (2.2%) 4 0 5 1 (2.2%) 6 1 (2.2%) 7 2 (4.3%) 8 3 (6.5%) 9 7 (15.2%) M 2.72 0.35 Note. Means are calculated by dividing total number of disagreements by total number of trials and multiplying by the number of trials per partici￾pant (i.e., nine). 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. 226 HODGES, MEAGHER, NORTON, MCBAIN, AND SROUBEK