Social influences towards conformism in economic experiments

Shaun Hargreaves Heap

No 2014-4, Economics Discussion Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)

Abstract: This paper reviews some of the economic experimental evidence on conformism. There is nothing to match the early psychology experiments where subjects were often swayed by the behaviour of others to an extraordinary degree, but there is plenty of evidence of conformism. This seems built-in to our sociality either because we have preferences for conversation or status which are activated by the knowledge of what others do, or because other people face relevantly similar decisions to our own and so that their behaviour signals something useful to us about the uncertain world. These social influences can cause mischief. The more worrying cases, however, are those where individual preferences themselves change through interaction with others: the strongest experimental evidence for this is with respect to individual social preferences.

Keywords: social conformism; information cascade; preference change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D43 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/90155/1/776583638.pdf (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Social influences towards conformism in economic experiments (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:20144

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