Does 'cyber-conformity' vary cross-culturally? Exploring the effect of culture and communication medium on social conformity

Authors:
Marco Cinnirella;Ben Green
Affiliations:
Psychology Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom;Psychology Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
Venue:
Computers in Human Behavior
Year:
2007

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Abstract

Previous research has established that individuals from collectivistic cultures tend to conform more than their counterparts from individualistic cultures do [Bond, R., & Smith, P.B. (1996). Culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch's (1952b, 1956) line judgment task. Psychological Bulletin 119(1) 111-137]. However, there is presently a dearth of research exploring the degree to which this kind of cross-cultural difference is also present in computer-mediated communication (CMC) contexts where group members are never met face-to-face (f-t-f). A normative social influence paradigm of line-length judgment (based on Asch [Asch, S.E., (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American 193(5) 31-35]) was employed to investigate the effects of communication medium (f-t-f against CMC) and culture (participants from individualistic cultures against those from collectivist cultures). A communication typexculture interaction was found, in which the expected cultural differences were demonstrated only in the face-to-face conditions, being absent in computer-mediated conditions.