Do collectivists conform more than individualists? Cross-cultural differences in compliance and internalization

Abstract

Many previous researchers of conformity have found that people from collectivist cultures have stronger conformity tendencies than those from individualistic cultures. However, as most of these researchers focused on only 1 type of conformity, that is, compliance, these findings are limited. Consequently, little is known about the influence of culture on internalization, another type of conformity. In a series of virtual laboratory (e-lab) experiments in which participants were either simply exposed to choice dilemmas and opinion items or presented with a persuasive argument about each of them, I found that there was a lower level of cross-cultural differences in internalization than in compliance. Thus, only superficial cross-cultural differences may exist in conformity. © Society for Personality Research.