NORM EXTREMITY AND INTERPERSONAL INFLUENCES ON CONSUMER CONFORMITY

The ability of norm extremity (i.e., the extent to which referent others' judgments are thought to deviate from perceived reality) to moderate the strength of normative and informational influences on consumer conformity is examined in two experiments. Normative mechanisms are examined in study 1 in which it is predicted that increases in group size will lead to greater increases in conformity when norms are extreme rather than moderate. Informational influences are investigated in study 2 in which increases in group expertise were hypothesized to lead to greater increases in conformity when norms are moderate rather than extreme. The results revealed that conformity increased with increasing group size only when norms were extreme and with increasing group expertise when norms were moderate. However, the effects for both studies were unexpectedly qualified by significant interactions with subjective knowledge, such that the observed effects were most consistent with the hypotheses for low knowledge subjects.