Final Draft ARP Paper

To Kill or Not to Kill: The Effects of Conformity on a Morally Ambiguous Decision 1
To Kill or Not to Kill:
The Effects of Conformity on a Morally Ambiguous Decision
Allison P. Nayder
Central College

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine a relationship between the pressure to conform and
the decisions one makes in a morally ambiguous situation. Past research shows that people
conform as a way of feeling like they are part of the group (Asch, 1955; Taylor and Bloomfield,
2010). The current study put participants in a morally ambiguous situation and asked them to
make a decision to either kill or not kill, with both costs and benefits to each. Some were shown
normative statistics in an effort to induce conformity, while others we not. After, they responded
to several questionnaires measuring levels of morality, religiosity and social desirability.
We found that participants who were exposed to weak normative statistics decided to kill less
often than those exposed to strong normative statistics. As well, highly intrinsically religious
participants conformed less than those who were not, while morality and social desirability did
not predict participants’ decisions.

Whether we are using forks and knives to eat, buying the latest shoes or only ordering
one scoop of ice cream because nobody else ordered three, we conform to social norms and
pressures on a daily basis, often without the realization that we are doing so. In 1955,
psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated just how influential social pressure can be in decision
making. In a room of well-educated men, when asked a question with a very obviously correct
answer, 75% of participants answered at least one question incorrectly if the men before him also
did so in an effort to avoid social ostracism. The psychological power behind being accepted by
our peers is dangerously strong, and social norms can cause us to behave in a certain way,
regardless of the costs or benefits that may or may not ensue (Tayler and Bloomfield, 2010).
Some of psychology’s most infamous experiments including the Milgram experiment and
the Stanford Prison Study illustrate the power of conformity. In Philip Zimbardo’s prison study,
the participants whom he recruited were average college students who were expected to conform
to either a role as a prisoner or as a guard. However, they conformed so strongly to these roles
that those playing the guards caused serious psychological damage to those playing the prisoners
(Zimbardo, 1971). In Stanley Milgram’s shocking experiment, participants were asked to
distribute an electric shock to another man, in increasing volts, every time he answered a
question incorrectly. They continued to follow the instructions of the experimenter even through
their doubt and were eventually led to believe that they had shocked a man to death because they
were told to do so (Milgram, 1963). In both cases, participants in the studied conformed to
immoral behaviors but justified doing so because they had taken on a role that was “expected” of
them.
Another study found that those who show high levels of social desirability are more
likely to conform. In other words, people are often willing to sacrifice his or her own beliefs in

order to maintain in-group status (Fischer and Huddart, 2008). Because this phenomenon is so
strong, when weighing decisions on a cost to benefit scale, most often the social benefits of the
undesirable decision tends to outweigh the personal costs of the desirable decision.
Social Desirability and Conformity
Studies have shown that when people are not being watched or when there is a benefit to
not conforming, they conform less. This was especially evident in tasks that included budgeting
and strategy, as seen in the Dictator/Ultimatum Game (Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler, 1986)
and the Public Goods Game (Tayler and Bloomfield, 2010).
In Tayler and Bloomfield’s economics study, they found that participants were likely to
contribute more money to the social pot when the risk of their savings being audited increased.
Instead of being exposed as a person who did not equally contribute to society, they gave up
more of their own property. In other words, coming out on the winning end of a social dilemma
was more valuable than coming out on the winning end of an economic dilemma. The social
pressure to conform was much higher than their personal goals. However, when there was no
risk of being audited, a benefit to not conforming, participants acted in their own best interest.
This was likely due to the idea that they were not only able to break a social norm without being
noticed, but there was actually a reward for doing so- they were able to keep their money.
Dawes et al.(1977) set two standards for a social dilemma- first, the payoff for the bad
behavior is greater than the payoff for the good behavior. Second, if all members of society
engage in the bad behavior, then all members of society receive a lower payoff. They found that
in a social dilemma, people most often behave as they expect others to behave. In other words,
the more participants anticipated that others would engage in anti-social behavior, the more

likely they were to engage themselves and vice-versa. So, when the best path was unclear, they
looked to those around them in order to make the most socially desirably decision.
Moral Relativism
Throughout history, people have made decisions based on the decisions made by those
around them, and societies have helped the people living within them to form a set of morals
based on the way those around them behave. A group of people known as relativists believes that
morality is a “culturally conditioned response…and varies differently across time and place”
(Prinz, 2011). In other words, morals are a learned behavior rather than an inherent one. If this is
true, then morals, the things that we hold truest in our minds, may be swayed as a result of
changes within society. This raises the question, “can this change in belief be manipulated?”
In past centuries, certain groups of people have made life-altering choices because they
were able to justify them based on the norms of their society. For example, in the arctic regions,
infanticide was once a commonly accepted practice. Though another culture may not be able to
grasp the reasoning behind it, the Inuit tribes who were being forced to make the decision
understood that if children were not sacrificed, then their already low supply of resources would
run even lower. This would then limit the resources of the more productive members of society,
causing more harm than good to all (Prinz, 2011). If morals can be altered through legitimate
justification, then one might assume that they may be manipulated in other ways as well.
However, decisions based on personal norms tend to leave people the most satisfied (Taylor and
Bloomfield, 2010; Ripstein, 2006).
Conformity in Morally Ambiguous Situations
As children, we learn to make decisions with the help of our parents. Research has shown
that this joint decision making technique is ideal for development and functioning in children

(Lamborn et al., 1996; Steinberg, Elmen, & Mounts, 1989). From this, we gain a sense of both
confidence when making the correct choice and guidance when we are unsure. This also prepares
us for the unilateral decision-making that comes with adulthood (Wray-Lake, Crouter and
McHale, 2010).
In adulthood, however, we often find that what is moral and immoral is unclear. In
situations where the benefits of one choice outweigh the costs of another, the decision seems
obvious. What if, however, the costs of both situations are high and we must make a decision?
For example, the famous Trolley Dilemma paints a picture of a scenario where the best decision
is highly ambiguous. In this situation, a person must choose between letting a trolley continue
down its path where it will kill five people or changing the trolley’s course so that only one
person will be killed, but the other five remain safe (Thompson, 1985).
When faced with these morally ambiguous decisions, we often look to others for the best
answer. We as humans have an innate sense of needing to belong, and this has a sizeable
influence on the choices we make (Fischer and Huddart, 2008). In scenarios like the trolley
dilemma, regardless of the route we choose to take, we are hypothetically deciding to kill
someone (or many). In order to live with the guilt that is sure to follow this decision, we seek
justification of our actions and decisions (Prinz, 2011). This justification gives us the
gratification of knowing that we are not alone in the choices we made- we are still part of the
group. Is it possible that in morally ambiguous situations, we might regress to the comfort from
our middle adolescent, joint-decision making techniques that were practiced with our parents?
Current Study
Previous research has made it evident that humans are social creatures who look to others
for acceptance. As well, it is evident that overall, humans have a basic set of moral principles on

which they rely when making decisions. This study will look at the effects of social suggestion
on moral decision-making in individuals who have high or low levels of religiousness, morality
and social desirability.
Hypotheses
I hypothesize that participants who are exposed to strong normative statistics will
conform more compared to those who are exposed to weak normative statistics. I also predict
that those with high levels of morality and a strong sense of religiousness will conform less.
Finally, I predict that those who scored high on levels of social desirability will conform more.
Participants. 152 college-aged participants, 34 male, 87 female, were recruited via
Facebook, Twitter, and other various online forums to participate in this study. The majority of
participants studied in the U.S., but others also studied in Canada, England, The Netherlands,
Austria, India and Chile. Of these participants, 87 identified as Christian (Catholic, Protestant,
Methodist or Reformed), 3 identified as Muslim, 12 as Atheist, and 12 as agnostic or spiritual-
the others chose not to respond. Both the mean and median year in school for participants was 3.
Procedure Each participant completed this study on a computer or tablet via the
website, Qualtrics, and were randomly assigned into one of four categories. Participants were
directed to a vignette that read as follows:
You are part of a group of ecologists who live in a remote stretch of jungle. Your entire
group, which includes eight children, has been taken hostage by a group of paramilitary terrorists.
One of the terrorists takes a liking to you. He informs you that his leader intends to kill you and
the rest of the hostages the following morning.
He is willing to help you and the children escape, but as an act of good faith he wants you
to torture and kill one of your fellow hostages whom he does not like. If you refuse his offer, all
the hostages including the children and yourself will die. If you accept his offer, then the others
will die in the morning, but you and the eight children will escape.

In the first three conditions, participants were shown normative statistics stating that
20%, 50% or 80% of people agreed to kill the fellow hostage. Then, they were asked what they
would do in the situation, either kill or not kill. For all analyses except that measuring
religiousness, these conditions were collapsed into a weak conformity condition (control and
20% conformity) and a strong conformity condition (50% conformity and 80% conformity). In
the control condition, no statistics were shown. All participants were asked to rate how confident
they were in their decisions on a scale of 1 (absolutely uncertain) to 7 (absolutely certain).
Because the first dependent variable, kill or not kill, is dichotomous, participants’
responses to both questions were multiplied in order to calculate one, continuous dependent
variable. “Kill” was coded as “2” while “not kill” was coded as “1.” This new variable is known
in the current study as participants’ conformity score, and on a 1-14 point scale, we were allowed
to see how confident (a high score) or not confident (a low score) they were with the idea of
killing their fellow hostage. It should be noted that this was not a normal distribution, with over
66% of participants scoring a 7 or below on the conformity scale, M = 6.59, SD = 3.36.
Upon completion, participants answered a series of questionnaires including the Moral
Identity Scale (Aquino and Reed, 2002), measuring how morally or not morally driven they are,
the Religious Orientation Scale (Gorsuch and McPherson, 1989), The Short Forms of the
Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Ballard, 1992). These inventories had Cronbach’s
Alphas scores of .882, .861 and .237 respectively. Finally, participants filled out a demographics
form, asking about their age, gender, religion and other various demographics. At the conclusion
of the study, participants read a short debriefing statement.

Results
Correlations. A correlational analysis showed that there were many relationships
amongst variables (see Table 1). As morality, intrinsic and extrinsic personal religiousness, total
religiousness and age increased, conformity scores decreased. Morality increased with extrinsic
personal and total religiousness, and all types of religiousness were strongly correlated, as would
be expected. There was no significant relationship, however, between social desirability and any
other variables.
Table 1
Correlations Table
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 Conformity Score -0.187 -0.204 -0.192 -0.154 -0.228 -0.085 -0.267
2 Morality 0.164 0.21 0.155 0.196 0.087 0.064
3 Intrinsic Religion 0.636 0.32 0.785 0.002 0.037
4 Extrinsic Personal Religion 0.532 0.907 -0.048 -0.055
5 Extrinsic Social Religion 0.723 0.097 0.022
6 Total Religion -0.005 -0.006
7 Social Desirability 0.12
8 Year in School
Normative Statistics. There was a marginally significant effect of conformity condition
on participant’s decision to kill, Χ2 (1, N= 152) = 3.224, p = .051. Those who were in the weak
conformity condition (control condition and the 20% conformity conditions) tended to kill less
often than those in the strong conformity condition (50% conformity and 80% conformity
condition) (See Figure 1).
Religiousness and Morality. There was a trend interaction between conformity condition
and intrinsic religiousness, such that R2 = .075, F(1,124) = 3.462, p = .065, of intrinsic religiosity
on how confident participants were in their decisions to kill. In other words, participants who
demonstrated high levels of intrinsic religiousness conformed less to normative statistics while

participants who demonstrated low levels of intrinsic religiousness conformed more to the
normative statistics (See Figure 2).
Extrinsic religiousness on a personal level, R2 = .056, F(1,124) = .749, p = .375, extrinsic
religiousness on a social level, R2 = .034, F(1,124) = .272, p = .603, and morality, R2 = .045,
F(1,129) = .541, p = .463 did not interact with conformity conditions to effect the strength of
participants’ conformity levels.
Discussion
It was hypothesized that participants would conform more to strong normative statistics,
participants with high levels of religiousness and morality would conform less, and those with a
strong desire to be socially desirable would conform more.
Of these hypotheses, the first hypothesis was the most strongly supported- there was a
trend effect of participant’s condition on levels of conformity. Participants in the strong
conformity conditions say they would kill more often than those in the weak conformity
condition.
Looking at the means, participants who were in the 50% conformity condition alone
killed more often than all other conditions including the 80% conformity condition. This may be
because 50% is not a majority, so participants were more comfortable responding in either
direction. We consider this to have been a limitation to our study. Initially we believed that not
exposing participants to any normative statistics would have allowed them to respond in an
unbiased manner. After consideration, however, it may have been that participants in the 50%
condition felt affirmation in their decisions to either kill or not kill, regardless of what direction
they chose compared to the control condition, where participants may have doubted their
decision to kill due to a lack of support or affirmation by others.

We also found that participants who scored high on levels of intrinsic religiousness were
less influenced by the conditions that they were in. Across all conditions, those who scored high
in levels of intrinsic religiousness had an average conformity score of under 6 on a 1-14 scale.
This means that these participants were either deciding to kill their fellow hostage, but were
fairly uncertain with their decision to do so, or they chose to not kill their fellow hostage and
were quite confident in their decision. On the other hand, those who scored low in intrinsic
religiousness scored up to just under an 8 on the same 1-14 scale for conformity levels. This
means that they had made the decision to kill, regardless of certainty in the 80% conformity
condition. This may be due to the idea that those who are religious for intrinsic reasons have a
better foundation for what they believe in. Rather than being concerned with the opinions of
others, they may be inherently more reliant on their own sense of right and wrong (Gamwell,
1993).
We did not, however, find that extrinsic religiousness or morality predicted whether or
not participants would conform to the normative statistics. We also did not find any relationship
between social desirability and conformity scores, as predicted. Further, we found that if the
relationship were significant, the results appeared in the direction opposite of what we would
have expected. That is, as social desirability increased, conformity scores decreased. This is
likely attributed to the fact that participants were told that their responses would be kept
confidential and anonymous. In other words, participants did not take any responsibility of their
responses. As past research shows, people are much less likely to conform when they are not
being watched (Kahneman et al., 1986). In turn, it is fair to believe that social desirability may
not play a role in the decisions people make in private, regardless of how strongly socially
desirable they may be, but this notion should be explored further.

One other explanation for our data not matching past research may be due to such a low
Cronbach Alpha for the social desirability measure in our sample. Although this particular
measure has been used in a number of past studies, the internal validity of it in the current study
was surprisingly low.
An unexpected finding was that participants age was negatively correlated to levels of
conformity, so as they grew older, they were less likely to kill their fellow hostage. This was not
anticipated, but may tell a bit about how we change over time. Participants who recorded that
they were first or second year students both made the decision to kill more often compared to
those who responded that they were third, fourth of fifth year students, all deciding to kill less
often than they decided to kill. This may be due to the fact that freshman and sophomores are
overcompensating for being younger. As a senior in high school, students are at the top of the
social pyramid and often feel a sense of power or entitlement with the knowledge that others
look up to them. It is possible that this either translates into their first years of college, or they
realize that once again, they are on the bottom of the ladder, having to begin working their way
up again. One study even suggest that most freshmen are not psychologically prepared for the
changes they face their freshman year, so they find ways to compensate in order to feel adequate
(Venezia and Jaeger, 2013).
Future Research. If this study were to be reconducted in the future, alterations to the
conditions may help experimenters better understand participant behavior. Rather than having a
control and a 50% conformity condition, it may be better to have three conditions with a control
condition (no statistics), a 10% conformity condition, and a 90% conformity condition in order to
ensure that one group sees a majority while the other sees a minority of people who believe their
actions are acceptable.

The participant’s calculated conformity scores may have also been more telling if the
variables were recoded differently. Instead of coding “kill” as “2” and “not kill” as “1” in SPSS,
it may be better to code “kill” as “1” and “not kill” as “-1.” In other words, 0 would be
completely neutral while -7 would allow researchers to see that participants were completely
confident in their decision to not kill and those with a score of 7 would prove that they decided to
kill their fellow hostage and were completely confident in their decision to do so. This would
give a more authentic depiction of participants’ conformity levels.
As well, there may be an advantage in allowing participants to believe that their
responses will be shared with others in order to better understand the roles social desirability
may have played. If those who scored high on social desirability scales thought that they may
have to take responsibility for their decisions, then it is safe to hypothesize that they would
conform to the majority in order to avoid any form of ostracism.
Social desirability can also be attributed to different social pressures. Some people may
have responded in socially desirable ways because they believed that it is truly what they would
do in the situation. This is known as self-deception. On the other hand, others may have
responded in a socially desirable way in order to maintain their good reputation. This is known
as self-preservation and as mentioned before, participants in this study were not concerned with
the idea of self-preservation because their responses were both anonymous and confidential.
However, future research may benefit from testing both roots of social desirability in order to
better understand what may be happening.
Others may also be interested in doing either a longitudinal study or looking at different
ages to compare to the college aged sample. Since we saw such a drastic change between first
years and fourth years, there may be a larger trend throughout a person’s life that has not been

looked into. Does this trend begin at childhood and continue throughout a person’s life? Or does
it peak at middle adult hood then decline or plateau? There is more to be explored here.
Conclusion
From this study, we now know that religiousness, specifically intrinsically motivated
religiousness, is a predictor of conformity and that people look to their peers for answers in
morally ambiguous situations. We can also assume that the urge to be socially desirable is much
weaker when we are in private compared to when we are being watched, although further
research is necessary to better understand this finding. As well, the need to conform seems to
decrease in our early 20s, suggesting that we may learn more in college than how to elegantly
write a research paper!

Figure 1. Participants’ decision to kill or not kill based on conformity condition.
Figure 2. The interaction between participants’ conformity condition and level of
religiousness.
References
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Weak Strong
PercentofParticipants
Conformity Condition
Would Not Kill Would Kill
5.5
6
6.5
7
7.5
8
Control 20% 50% 80%
ConformityScore
Conformity Condition
Low Religousness High Religousness

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