Independence in the Presence of an Experienced but Deviate Group Member

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Abstract
This experiment provided three possible alternatives in response to social influence: i.e., agreement with a majority, agreement with a minority, or independence from both. Forty female undergraduates, in groups of five, initially made perceptual judgments of unambiguous stimuli in a modified Crutchfield apparatus with three response alternatives. In the first response position, the S received apparent agreement from either three or from only one of the other four during the initial phase. In each group the deviate from the majority judgment had been described as either experienced or inexperienced at the task. In a second phase, all Ss were placed in the last response position for judgments of highly ambiguous stimuli. For 15 critical trials, they saw the majority continue to pick one alternative, and the deviate another. On these trials the S could agree with the majority, with the deviate, or with neither. The results showed no major effect for the majority vs. minority agreement. However, the presence of an experienced deviate did lead to decreased agreement with the majority, but without more agreement with the deviate. Instead, the presence of an experienced deviate significantly increased independence from all the others.

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