SPEAKING FROM IGNORANCE 221 solutions is ntirely satisfactory Thus there is likely to he insta y.trust will tend to erate a ninetcmdcncicsbcreeoposiblcotetionsb ding nses to the dilemma ers unless the situati is one in which the ocial solidarit e also at play in the SFI dilemma Asch(1952. lons,it is onable to expect that most peopl e most of the tim 1955)thought it bvious that on should trust one's eyes in raint to speak truthfully and with epi t seems obvious that one should trust others and not oneself both m to th firs s possible re was te d ha Wha t thi d eak ba ed what they themselves can edo1 by a zero-tolerance standard.Any agreement Although it is ofen assumed that speaking truthfully Hodges.2004 Krueger Funder. 2004)The SFI ave argued tively inverts the Asch situ ne Asch situation.we think is one of the where the most lea ect information that they nto cons disagreement.given that one had good reasons to expect with thosce onform in an SFI situation,they would be expe d always to s s of the SFI to act cooperati ely and if might nudge the same criterion used to evaluate Asch's results. tion c other Overview of Experiments hand,the SFI situation haring o the The firs la and Iby ly to second id oo atics lead people to they can mak h h I people ha so ba d on se to stly one cial olidarity involvesmo than simple con mnts (e.g.reactance.refusal to imitate)that misht explain an ed with ma ing the tegrity of the SFI effect.In a third ffective group.Thi may requir answers.as predicted by value pragmatics theory. group I Experiments la and 1b d out.di Method Procedure.Participants volunteered for a study on "visua toward agreeme nt (the others are c some of the time ald be to"give the most correct answer that you can"to each solution is to consider guessing at what one cannot see clearly, as an honest acknowledgment of one’s ignorance. Neither of these solutions is entirely satisfactory. Thus, there is likely to be insta￾bility, with fluctuating tendencies between possible solutions, both within and across individuals, leading to considerable variability in responses to the dilemma. The pragmatic analysis of the SFI situation suggests that the same three values at work in the Asch situation—truth, trust, and social solidarity—are also at play in the SFI dilemma. Asch (1952, 1955) thought it obvious that one should trust one’s own eyes in preference to others’ in his situation; however, in an SFI situation, it seems obvious that one should trust others and not oneself. Both predictions assume, though, that what is properly motivating par￾ticipants’ choices is the goal of answering as many questions correctly as possible. Perhaps participants’ motivations are more complex than this. What if, for example, participants are motivated to speak truthfully in an SFI situation? If participants think they are being asked to speak based only on what they themselves can see, then they are likely to feel constrained to indicate their ignorance, answering incorrectly. They will have spoken truthfully but not correctly. Although it is often assumed that speaking truthfully would entail answering a question correctly, we have argued there are cases where being truthful cannot be reduced to accuracy. The Asch situation, we think, is one of those where the most compre￾hensive accounting of what is true will take into consideration the differing views of one’s colleagues and the frustrating tension of the disagreement, given that one had good reasons to expect agreement. If the pragmatics of the SFI situation make it difficult to know how to act cooperatively and if truthfulness might nudge some people some of the time to choose to reveal their ignorance, what role is played by social solidarity and by trust? Regarding trust, we assume that participants in a position of ignorance will trust others in better positions to know unless they have evidence to the contrary. Social solidarity, though, is not as straightforward. On the one hand, the SFI situation invites a sharing of views; on the other hand, participants are likely to feel there is nothing for them to say except to repeat what others have said. Ordinary conversa￾tional pragmatics lead people to expect they can make a unique contribution to a conversation based on their own point of view and experience. It is not wrong to repeat what other, better in￾formed people have told you, but it is awkward to do so based only on blind trust. Thus, it also makes sense to offer honestly one’s own perspective, even if it is likely to be incorrect. Social solidarity involves more than simple consensus or uni￾formity. It is more concerned with maintaining the integrity of the relationship among group members and advancing the welfare and effectiveness of the group. This may require complementary ac￾tions, in which each member of the group fulfills differing roles in generating the overall action of the group. As numerous authors have pointed out, disagreements can be a reflection of interdepen￾dence and commitment to a group, rather than expressions of independence or disloyalty (e.g., Hornsey & Jetten, 2004; Packer, 2008). Generally, in an SFI situation, social solidarity would move one toward agreement (the others are correct after all), but since the agreement comes without pragmatic warrant, participants might feel constrained to acknowledge their ignorance at least some of the time. Overall, it is the pragmatic relation among the various values in a particular task that can have an effect on decisions to agree or disagree. Generally, trust will tend to generate agreeing answers, but truthfulness will constrain that tendency, yielding significant amounts of disagreement. Social solidarity will generally encour￾age agreeing answers unless the situation is one in which those answers would threaten the well-being of the group or strain the relationship among its members. Given this general set of rela￾tions, it is reasonable to expect that most people most of the time will agree with correct answers of others. However, the pragmatic constraint to speak truthfully and with epistemic warrant will lead to a significant number of answers that do not conform to the correct answers of better informed others. We refer to these non￾conforming, incorrect answers as the SFI effect. This effect, first predicted by Hodges and Geyer (2006), was tested in the experi￾ments reported here as a way of testing whether people would conform when it seems like the normatively correct thing to do. How large should such an SFI effect be, if it occurs? Perhaps, the best comparison is Asch’s situation, which has been interpreted by a zero-tolerance standard. Any agreement with wrong answers is considered as constituting conformity (Friend et al., 1990; Hodges, 2004; Krueger & Funder, 2004). The SFI situation effec￾tively inverts the Asch situation. When one has no information or entirely ambiguous information and others are believed to have clear, correct information that they share, there is every reason to believe that agreement with those answers will be unanimous. Thus, we assume a zero-tolerance standard as well. If people conform in an SFI situation, they would be expected always to give correct, agreeing answers. One could argue that the normative expectations (i.e., what seems socially appropriate) are even stron￾ger in an SFI situation than in an Asch situation. If that is the case, it seems all the more appropriate for the SFI effect to be evaluated by the same criterion used to evaluate Asch’s results. Overview of Experiments The first experiments we report (Experiments 1a and 1b) were exploratory: Is there evidence for an SFI effect? In the second experiment, participants gave answers both in a position of knowl￾edge and in a position of ignorance. This manipulation allowed for a stronger test of the SFI effect and, along with self-report mea￾sures on motivations and perceptions of the task, enabled us to evaluate whether there was evidence supporting a values￾pragmatics account (e.g., concern for truthfulness). In addition, it provided various means for testing whether there were alternative accounts (e.g., reactance, refusal to imitate) that might explain an SFI effect. In a third experiment, we manipulated participants’ concern for speaking truthfully to see if this increased nonagreeing answers, as predicted by values-pragmatics theory. Experiments 1a and 1b Method Procedure. Participants volunteered for a study on “visual processing from different angles and distances” and were told that they would be placed in different positions and asked to answer questions about information projected onto the screen. Their task would be to “give the most correct answer that you can” to each 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. SPEAKING FROM IGNORANCE 221