Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology of Shahid Beheshti University Tehran Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Studies in the context of social impact on decision-making and cognitive biases are very limited and rare, especially in our academic research. The group effect, the peer effect, and awareness of the choice of others on the Internet are rarely considered. Purpose: Is awareness of the previous group majority of individuals making the will change the participants' responses? Can such changes relate to the decision-making of others? Method: the research population was all student of universities of Tehran, and the sample was 180 student with convenience sampling. The social effect deduced from the changes in decisions before and after subjects' awareness of the most popular choices of previous participants. Although the subjects can maintain their choices. The non-normal distribution of data made us use non-parametric tests like Chi-Square, Wilcoxon, and Mann Whitney. Results: The effect of the decision-making was significant (more in favor of irrational economic decision-making). People faced to conformity booster problems change four problems on average, and in conformity reducer problems changed 3 answers on average (significantly 7 out of 31 problems). Participants just by observing a sign changed their overall 23 percent of all questions in line with the related kind of conformity (p <0.05). Women showed more intense tendency to conform, and "risk aversion" and "ambiguity" in general were more prone to it (p <0.05). Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research, social conformity was effective in changing cognitive biases and heuristics in economic decision-making, especially when increases those biases.

Keywords

منابع
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-          Burger, J., & Shelton, M. (2011). Changing everyday health behaviors through descriptive norm manipulations. Social Influence6(2), 69-77. doi: 10.1080/15534510.2010.542305.
-          Buunk, B., Van Den Eijnden, R., & Siero, F. (2002). The Double-Edged Sword of Providing Information About the Prevalence of Safer Sex1. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology32(4), 684-699. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00237.x
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-          Plous, S. (1993). The psychology of judgment and decision making. New York: McGraw-Hill.
-          Rohde, I. and Rohde, K. (2011). Risk attitudes in a social context. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 43(3), pp.205-225.
-          Saad, G. (2011). Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
-          Santos, R. L., Rosati, A. G. (2015). The Evolutionary Roots of Human Decision Making. Annual Review Psychology. 66: 321–347.
-          Schultz, W., Khazian, A., & Zaleski, A. (2008). Using normative social influence to promote conservation among hotel guests. Social Influence3(1), 4-23. doi: 10.1080/15534510701755614
-          Stallen, M., Smidts, A., & Sanfey, A. (2013). Peer influence: neural mechanisms underlying in-group conformity. Frontiers In Human Neuroscience7. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00050
-          Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science211(4481), 453-458. doi: 10.1126/science.7455683
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1992). Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative
منابع
-          Ackert, L., & Deaves, R. (2010). Behavioral finance. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
-          Albarracín, D., & Mitchell, A. (2004). The Role of Defensive Confidence in Preference for Proattitudinal Information: How Believing That One Is Strong Can Sometimes Be a Defensive Weakness. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin30(12), 1565-1584. doi: 10.1177/0146167204271180
-          Allais, M. (1953). Le Comportement de l'Homme Rationnel devant le Risque: Critique des Postulats et Axiomes de l'Ecole Americaine. Econometrica21(4), 503. doi: 10.2307/1907921
-          Altman, M. (2015). Handbook of contemporary behavioral economics: foundations and developments. Routledge.
-          Asch, S. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70(9), pp.1-70.
-          Breckler, S. J., Olson, J., & Wiggins, E. (2005). Social psychology alive. Cengage Learning.
-          Burger, J., & Shelton, M. (2011). Changing everyday health behaviors through descriptive norm manipulations. Social Influence6(2), 69-77. doi: 10.1080/15534510.2010.542305.
-          Buunk, B., Van Den Eijnden, R., & Siero, F. (2002). The Double-Edged Sword of Providing Information About the Prevalence of Safer Sex1. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology32(4), 684-699. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00237.x
-          Camerer, C. F., & Loewenstein, G. (2003). Behavioral economics: Past, present, future.
-          Cialdini, R. B., Trost M. R. (1998). Social influence: social norms, conformity, and compliance. In The Handbook of Social Psychology, ed. DT Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, G. Lindzey, 2:151–92. Boston: McGraw-Hill. 4th ed.
-          Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J. (2004). Social Influence: Compliance and Conformity. Annual Review. Psychology. 55:591–621
-          Cooper, j. D., Rege, M. (2011). Misery loves company: Social regret and social interaction effects. Games and Economic Behavior, 73, 91–110.
-          Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology51(3), 629-636. doi: 10.1037/h0046408.
-          Doorn, N. (2013). Sabine Roeser, Rafaela Hillerbrand, Per Sandin, Martin Peterson (eds): Handbook of Risk Theory: Epistemology, Decision Theory, Ethics, and Social Implications of Risk.
-          Ellsberg, D. (1961). Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms. The Quarterly Journal Of Economics75(4), 643. doi: 10.2307/1884324.
-          Eysenck, M. W. (2004). Psychology: An international perspective. Taylor & Francis.
-          Festinger, L. (1954). A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations7(2), 117-140. doi: 10.1177/001872675400700202.
-          Gardner, M., Steinberg, L. (2005). Peer Influence on Risk Taking, Risk Preference, and Risky Decision Making in Adolescence and Adulthood: An Experimental Study. Developmental Psychology. Vol. 41, No. 4, 625–635.
-          Goeree, J. K., Yariv, L. (2015). Conformity in the lab. Journal Economic Science Association. 1:15–28.
-          Hertz, N., & Wiese, E. (2016, September). Influence of agent type and task ambiguity on conformity in social decision making. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 313-317). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
-          Hong, H., Kubik, J. D., & Stein, J. C. (2004). Social interaction and stock‐market participation. The journal of finance59(1), 137-163.
-          Huang, Y., Kendrick, K., & Yu, R. (2014). Social conflicts elicit an N400-like component. Neuropsychologia65, 211-220. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.10.032
-          Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–292.
-          Klucharev, V., Hytönen, K., Rijpkema, M., Smidts, A., & Fernández, G. (2009). Reinforcement Learning Signal Predicts Social Conformity. Neuron61(1), 140-151. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.11.027
-          Lahno, A., & Serra-Garcia, M. (2015). Peer effects in risk taking: Envy or conformity?. Journal Of Risk And Uncertainty50(1), 73-95. doi: 10.1007/s11166-015-9209-4
-          Liu, J., & Sibley, C. (2004). Attitudes and behavior in social space: Public good interventions based on shared representations and environmental influences. Journal Of Environmental Psychology24(3), 373-384. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2003.12.003.
-          Pascual, A., Felonneau, M., Guéguen, N. and Lafaille, E. (2013). Conformity, obedience to authority, and compliance without pressure to control cigarette butt pollution. Social Influence, 9(2), pp.83-98.
-          Plous, S. (1993). The psychology of judgment and decision making. New York: McGraw-Hill.
-          Rohde, I. and Rohde, K. (2011). Risk attitudes in a social context. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 43(3), pp.205-225.
-          Saad, G. (2011). Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
-          Santos, R. L., Rosati, A. G. (2015). The Evolutionary Roots of Human Decision Making. Annual Review Psychology. 66: 321–347.
-          Schultz, W., Khazian, A., & Zaleski, A. (2008). Using normative social influence to promote conservation among hotel guests. Social Influence3(1), 4-23. doi: 10.1080/15534510701755614
-          Stallen, M., Smidts, A., & Sanfey, A. (2013). Peer influence: neural mechanisms underlying in-group conformity. Frontiers In Human Neuroscience7. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00050
-          Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science211(4481), 453-458. doi: 10.1126/science.7455683
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1992). Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative