Automatic Normative Behavior in Environments: The Moderating Role of Conformity in Activating Situational Norms

Previous research (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003) has shown that mental representations of situational norms (e.g., behaving quietly in libraries) and corresponding overt behaviors are capable of being automatically activated. Two experiments extended this line of research by investigating the conditional role of the tendency to conform to social norms in these effects. Participants explored a picture of a library and were given the goal to visit this library or not. Accessibility of representations of normative behavior was assessed in a lexical decision task. In the first experiment, individual differences in conformity to social norms were measured, whereas in the second experiment conformity was primed. Results indicated that the goal to visit the environment caused participants to automatically access representations of normative behavior. Importantly, in both experiments conformity was shown to moderate these accessibility effects: Automatic access to representations of normative behavior emerged when conformity tendencies were active.