An Experimental Analysis of Moral Conformity in a Situation of Passive Social Pressure

This article presents the results of three experiments aimed at studying moral conformity under conditions of passive virtual pressure in the Russian cultural context. Moral conformity is defined as a social pressure-induced change in public moral behavior. The experiments used moral dilemmas as stimulus material, and moral behavior was assessed through the frequency of specific answers to these dilemmas. Social pressure was exerted by informing participants, who were filling out an online form, about the percentage of people responding to moral dilemmas in a certain way. This type of influence is considered as a passive virtual form of social pressure without an explicit identifiable source. The results of the first two experiments showed that passive virtual pressure leads to a change in the frequency of consequentialist responses, indicating the emergence of moral conformity. However, no differences between genders were found in the patterns of moral conformity. In contrast to foreign studies, an effect of asymmetric conformity in favor of the consequentialist majority, rather than the deontological majority, was observed. The third experiment, which differed in design and set of moral dilemmas from the two previous studies, showed that both consequentialist and deontological passive virtual social pressure induce moral conformity for all three types of dilemmas (personal, impersonal, and third -person dilemmas). It was found that women respond significantly less to consequentialist pressure in the case of third -person formulated dilemmas. Thus, conforming moral response may depend on the specific design of the study, the type and content of moral dilemmas, as well as the individual characteristics of the participants.