Do People Really Think They Are Alone in a Crowd of Sheep? Replication and Extension of Pronin et al. (2007)

People often think they are less biased, more rational, and less likely to conform than their peers. Research by Pronin et al. (2007, Study 2; N = 40) found that students evaluated themselves as less likely to be influenced by social pressures than their peers. We conducted a preregistered replication and extension of this study (N = 287). Consistent with the original study, students’ average conformity judgment indicated they thought they conformed less than their peers. However, 61.6% of the sample indicated they conformed as much as their peers and the overall effect was driven by the 27.4% who indicated they conformed less than their peers. In the extension condition, participants reported that a close friend conformed about as much as peers, ruling out an explanation that the original effect was driven by a gender tendency to rate individuals differently than groups. Overall, our study replicated the results of the original study, but added important context by showing that, although the average comparative conformity judgment indicated that people think they conform less than their peers, a majority of participants reported conforming just as much as their peers.