Personality and Social Psychology

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What Motivates Nonconformity? Uniqueness Seeking Blocks Majority Influence

Roland Imhoff and Hans-Peter Erb
Pers Soc Psychol Bull 2009 35: 309 originally published online 19 December 2008
DOI: 10.1177/0146167208328166
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What Motivates Nonconformity? Uniqueness

Seeking Blocks Majority Influence
Roland Imhoff
University of Bonn
Hans-Peter Erb
Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg

A high need for uniqueness undermines majority influence. Need for uniqueness (a) is a psychological state in
which individuals feel indistinguishable from others and
(b) motivates compensatory acts to reestablish a sense of
uniqueness. Three studies demonstrate that a strive for
uniqueness motivates individuals to resist majority
influence. In Study 1, the need for uniqueness was measured, and it was found that individuals high in need for
uniqueness yielded less to majority influence than those
low in need for uniqueness. In Study 2, participants
who received personality feedback undermining their
feeling of uniqueness agreed less with a majority (vs.
minority) position. Study 3 replicated this effect and
additionally demonstrated the motivational nature of
the assumed mechanism: An alternative means that
allowed participants to regain a feeling of uniqueness
canceled out the effect of high need for uniqueness on
majority influence.
Keywords:

majority; minority; consensus; social influence;

uniqueness

esearch on social influence has gathered considerable evidence that majority sources are usually
highly influential. A majoritys high consensus determines what is seen as normal and correct. Asked to
articulate an opinion on a subject that they have never
thought about, individuals will conform to what they
perceive as the majority option, presumably following
the heuristic, If everybody thinks that way, there must
be something to it. Conversely, being too similar to others has been described as evoking aversive feelings and
motivating compensatory action. Under certain conditions, it may not subjectively appear gratifying to think
or say what most others do. We presently propose that
one such condition is met when recipients of influence

experience a high need for uniqueness (NfU). We argue

and present data that a high NfU will block majority
influence.
In his seminal work on conformity, Asch (1956)
demonstrated that individuals may agree with majorities
even under conditions where the majority favors an
obviously incorrect option. Such conformity has been
explained by the individuals wish to meet the expectations of others, to avoid sanctions or even punishment
for deviance, or to create a sense of belonging. Majority
influence, however, is successful not only because of such
normative pressures but also because individuals accept
high consensus as evidence about the objective reality
(Deutsch & Gerard, 1955) or as social proof (Cialdini,
1993). They agree with the majority position because
high consensus serves as a cue to what is likely to be correct or, in other words, represents the objective consensus (Mackie, 1987). Therefore, responses to influence
attempts are usually more positive for majorities than for
minorities (e.g., Erb, Bohner, Schmlzle, & Rank, 1998;
Mackie, 1987; Moscovici, 1976; Mugny, 1975, 1982;
Wood, Lundgren, Ouellette, Busceme, & Blackstone,
1994). In fact, some authors even claim that the larger
the group, the greater the tendency to conform (e.g.,

Authors Note: This research is in parts based on the first authors

diploma thesis completed under the second authors supervision. We
thank Gerd Bohner and anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this article; Annette Wille, Lucia Krings, Lioba
Schmitz, Magdalena Jasinska, and Inga Leerhoff for their help in data
collection; and Astrid Emde for her support in computer programming. This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft to Hans-Peter Erb (ER 257/3-1).
PSPB, Vol. 35 No. 3, March 2009 309-320
DOI: 10.1177/0146167208328166
2009 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

309
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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

Bond & Smith, 1996). Correspondingly, a minority

source can serve as a discounting cue in persuasion
(McGuire, 1985; Watts & Holt, 1979) by calling to
mind negatively valenced heuristic inferences (cf. low
consensus implies incorrectness; Axsom, Yates, &
Chaiken, 1987; Chaiken & Stangor, 1987; Darke et al.,
1998; Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991) that guide information processing and subsequent judgment formation
(e.g., Erb et al., 1998; Mackie, 1987). In short, high consensus attached to any influence attempt will generally
have a strong impact on recipients in that people tend to
agree with the majority of others.

CONFORMITY BLOCK AND

MINORITY INFLUENCE
Given the well-established advantage of majority
influence sources, it seems to be interesting under what
conditions the effect of social proof on attitudes may
be undermined. To show that majority influence (and
not just any influence) is undermined under a certain
condition, two criteria have to be met (see Erb &
Bohner, 2007; Kruglanski & Mackie, 1990). First, one
has to demonstrate that the well-known benefit of
majority sources vanishes under this condition. Second,
to show that this decline in influence is specific for the
high consensus position, no such reduction should take
place under low consensus. In other words, if a certain
condition can make high consensus unattractive, it
should lead to less agreement with the majority option
(nonconformity), whereas agreement with the respective minority position should not be reduced or even
enhanced (anticonformity; Nail, 1986).
At first glance, it may seem that research on minority
influence fulfills these conditions. Yet we argue that
most of this literature is conceptually different from
the present approach. For example, according to
Moscovicis conversion theory (e.g., Moscovici, 1980),
minority influence relies on the minoritys consistent
behavioral style over time and members. Consistency
conveys courage and commitment (e.g., Maass &
Clark, 1984; Sigall, Mucchi-Faina, & Mosso, 2006) that
promotes attention to the minority view (Moscovici,
1980). If so, targets of minority influence engage in
extensive processing of the arguments, a process named
validation, and slowly but constantly adapt to the
minoritys position, initially on issues not identical but
somehow related to the focal issue of influence (indirect
influence).
Minorities are also more likely to exert influence
when they share a social identity with their recipients
(David & Turner, 2001; Turner, 1991; Turner, Hogg,

Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) or when the recipients are willing to show leniency toward the minority
group (Crano, 2001) or want to compensate the minority for unjustified wrongs they have suffered from in the
past (Moscovici & Perez, 2007).
Obviously, these models of minority influence unanimously share the assumption that minorities can overcome their inherently negative position by compensating
for low consensus. The idea of compensation is perhaps
most clearly stated in Latans social impact theory
(Latan & Wolf, 1981; Nowak, Szamrej, & Latan,
1990), according to which the minority can surmount
the disadvantage of being small in number by the immediacy (e.g., physical closeness) and strength (e.g., social
power) of their appeal. Accordingly, everything else
held constant, the majority always has the advantage of
representing higher consensus than the minority. Thus,
mechanisms proposed in these models to enable minorities to exert influence actually also lead to greater
majority influence. For example, a consistent behavioral
style not only enhances minority influence. In Aschs
(1956) experiments, as well, consistency had a strong
impact on the amount of influence, leading Moscovici
and colleagues to label conformity an effect of consistency (Moscovici, Lage, & Naffrechoux, 1969; p. 377).
Similarly, categorization of the influence agent as similar to oneself can increase both minority and majority
influence (David & Turner, 1996). In Baker and Pettys
(1994) research, both minority and majority influence
increased when sourceposition imbalance motivated
recipients to extensively process convincing arguments
put forward for the respective position. The review by
Wood and colleagues (1994) provides more of these
examples where a variable produced a main effect on
judgments, parallel for minority and majority sources,
but no interaction with consensus.
Thus, our approach is different from concurrent
models of minority influence in that we seek conditions
that operate differently under varying consensus conditions. Analogous to Moscovicis (1980, p. 210) notion
that what the minority does is bad, because there are
few who do it, we seek conditions under which the
majority option becomes less attractive, in that what
the majority does is bad because there are too many
who do it. We propose that one such condition is a
high NfU.

NfU and Social Influence

The need to feel different from others or even from an
anonymous mass has been postulated by several authors
(e.g. Brewer, 1991; Maslach, 1974; Snyder & Fromkin,
1980; Ziller, 1964), perhaps most prominently by
Snyder and Fromkin (1980) in their uniqueness theory.

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Imhoff, Erb / UNIQUENESS BLOCKS CONFORMITY

Accordingly, the motivation to establish a sense of ones
own uniqueness is a strong and continuous psychological force. Although the feeling of a certain uniqueness is
generally essential to individuals well-being (Lynn &
Snyder, 2002), people differ in the magnitude of their
NfU. Thus, for example, individuals who chronically
have a high NfU tend to exhibit an unusual style of interpersonal interaction (e.g., Maslach, Stapp, & Santee,
1985). They would also acquire, utilize, and display consumer products that are unusual or even unpopular,
because entities perceived as being outside the norm
may serve as recognizable symbols of uniqueness and
specialness (Tian, Bearden, & Hunter, 2001, p. 50; see
Lynn & Snyder, 2002, for a review). NfU as a personal
disposition has been measured by questionnaires (e.g.,
Synder & Fromkin, 1977), such as the Self Attributed
Need for Uniqueness Scale (SANU; Lynn & Harris,
1997; Lynn & Snyder, 2002).
However, the NfU must be conceptualized not only
as a trait in which individuals differ but as a temporary
motivation as well. That is, situational conditions can
give individuals the feeling that they are too similar to
or too different from others. Both conditions will motivate the individual to engage into compensatory actions
(Snyder & Fromkin, 1980). According to Fromkin
(1972), too little uniqueness leads to action aimed at
more distinction and dissimilarity (see also Fromkin,
1970).
Similar effects have been reported in the literature on
deindividuation, suggesting that to be indistinguishable
from others and therefore deprived of personal
uniqueness (White & Zimbardo, 1980, p. 59) may
motivate the person to demonstrate what he believes is
unique about himself (Zimbardo, 1969, p. 305).
Similarly, the theory of optimal distinctiveness (Brewer,
1991; Brewer & Roccas, 2001) postulated that groups
that are too large fail to satisfy the need for differentiation and motivate the individual to regain individuation
by strategies such as mentally shrinking in-group size
(Pickett, Silver, & Brewer, 2002) or identifying with
more distinct groups (e.g., Brewer & Pickett, 1999; for
a review, see Hornsey & Jetten, 2004).
The theoretical and empirical relations between the
concepts of uniqueness, deindividuation, and differentiation are presently not well understood and hardly discussed in the literature. These distinct lines of research,
however, converge to the conclusions that (a) there exist
conditions where individuals experience a need to be
unique or different from others and (b) this need will
motivate individuals to regain uniqueness. As agreeing
with what everybody else says, that is, agreeing with the
majority, cannot satisfy the need to be different from
others, it seems only a small step to assume that majority
influence will be blocked under conditions of high NfU.

311

Adding to the literature on social influence, we propose

that a high NfU will motivate individuals to agree less
with a high consensus position. In a state of deprived
uniqueness, individuals will avoid further deprivation in
that they adopt a nonconformist position. One way to
reduce the feeling of deprived uniquenessamong othersmay be to even agree more with the alternative
minority position on the issue under consideration. The
studies described below tested these assumptions.

STUDY 1

Method
Overview. Participants received a text including the
results of an alleged opinion poll in which consensus
information was manipulated. The main dependent
variable was their attitude toward the issue referred to
in the opinion poll. Participants then received a questionnaire that included the four items of the SANU
(Lynn & Snyder, 2002). We expected that participants
with a high NfU would agree more with the low-consensus position, whereas participants low in NfU would
agree more with the high-consensus position. At the
conclusion of the experiment, participants answered an
open-ended suspicion probe. They were then thoroughly
debriefed and paid 2 for their participation. Materials
were presented in appropriate German translations of
the following descriptions.
Participants and design. Participants were 44
students (17 female, 27 male; mean age 22.2) of various
majors at the Chemnitz University of Technology,
Germany. They volunteered for a study on text comprehension. Students were randomly assigned to one
of the two influence conditions (minority vs. majority
influence). NfU was assessed by a questionnaire including the SANU at the end of the experimental session.
Manipulation of minority and majority influence.
Participants received a text on an exhibition on the
history of eating and drinking in the German railway.
Attached to the text, the sheet presented a diagram
showing the alleged results of an opinion poll on the
question of whether dining cars should be disestablished
in the German railway. The diagram displayed that,
depending on the condition, either 79% (majority) or
21% (minority) agreed. Operationalizations were chosen to prevent recipients from (a) identifying with the
influence group and (b) processing message arguments.
Thus, (a) no information was given as to what sample
or how many individuals had been polled, and (b) the
text neither referred to the diagram nor presented

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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

persuasive arguments or any other information on the

dining car issue.

Dependent measures. After exposure to the text,

including the consensus diagram, participants responded
to seven items designed to uphold the cover story
(e.g., The text was easy to comprehend). They then
were asked to indicate their own attitude toward the
dining car issue on three items, for example, In my
opinion, dining cars in the German railroad should be
disestablished, answered on scales from 1 (do not agree
at all) to 7 (fully agree). As a manipulation check of
consensus, participants then were asked to estimate the
percentage of respondents who agreed on the issue. At
the conclusion of the study, participants filled in the
open-ended suspicion probe; reported their age, gender,
and major; and were debriefed.

Results
None of the students reported any suspicion about
the cover story. Thus, data analyses are based on the full
sample of N = 44 cases. Because this study, as well as
Studies 2 and 3, revealed no gender effects, this variable
will not receive further attention. Degrees of freedom
slightly vary as a result of occasionally missing data.
Manipulation check. Participants in the minority
condition estimated the percentage of respondents in
favor of the issue significantly lower, M = 20.60%, than
participants in the majority condition, M = 76.58%,
F(1, 42) = 1375.92, p < .001. Thus, the manipulation
of consensus was successful.
SANU. Because one item lowered the reliability of
the total scale, only three items were combined to form
a single index of need for uniqueness ( = .63). Scores
were independent of the consensus factor, F < 1.
Attitudes. The three attitude items were combined to
form a single index ( = .98). It was used as a dependent variable in a regression analysis with effect-coded
consensus condition (minority 1, majority +1), centered NfU, and an interaction term of consensus by NfU
as independent variables (Cohen, Cohen, West, &
Aiken, 2003, p. 375). This regression analysis produced
the expected interaction, = .29, p .05, but no

Minority
Majority

Attitude Index

Assessing NfU. Participants answered the SANU with

four items, for example, I prefer being different from
other people. The items were answered on a scale from
1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely) and presented with a set of
10 filler items (e.g., I feel in a good mood). The random order of items was the same for all participants.

5
4
3
2
1
- 1 SD

+ 1 SD

Self Attributed Need for Uniqueness

Attitudes toward disestablishment of dining cars in
German railroad as a function of need for uniqueness
and consensus (minoritymajority) in Study 1.
NOTE: Higher numbers indicate more favorable attitudes on a 9-point
rating scale.
Figure 1

main effect, both p > .20. The plotted graphs (Figure 1)

indicate that the majority was less influential under high
NfU, whereas the reverse was true for the minority.
Simple slope analyses (Cohen et al., 2003, p. 381) for
the two conditions revealed that whereas NfU negatively predicted majority influence, = .33, p < .05,
the positive prediction in the minority condition did not
reach significance, = .08, p > .05.

Discussion
This study provides initial support for the connection
between individuals NfU and their readiness to be
influenced by high consensus: Low-NfU participants
yielded to majority influence, whereas recipients with
high NfU scores did not. These effects emerged even
though the influence group was not specified in any way
that would likely raise feelings of identification. In fact,
the influence group was defined by nothing else than
consensus information displayed as the result of an
opinion poll. Furthermore, participants had not
received any information on the issue other than the
alleged opinion poll result. Thus, differential message
processing can be ruled out as the mechanism underlying the observed effect on attitudes.
However, there are also some weaknesses in the present study that need to be addressed. First of all, the
NfU measure yielded a reliability score that was not
fully satisfactory. Additionally, we see another liability in the fact that NfU was merely measured. It might

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Imhoff, Erb / UNIQUENESS BLOCKS CONFORMITY

be that, for example, after agreeing with a minority (for
some other reason), participants felt the need to
behave consistently and tried to confer a self-impression as generally nonconformist individuals by
answering the SANU items accordingly. To address the
assumed causal relation, we conducted experimental
studies manipulating NfU.

STUDY 2
Study 2 tested the hypothesis that manipulating NfU
by bogus feedback would affect social influence consistent with our reasoning. To experimentally vary NfU,
we developed a test-feedback method closely shaped
after Snyder and Fromkin (1980; Fromkin, 1970). A
pilot study was conducted to check whether the false
feedback had the intended effect on NfU.

Pilot Study
Participants and overview. Participants included 42
students (29 female, 13 male; mean age 22.7 years) of
various majors at the University of Bonn, Germany.
They volunteered for two allegedly unrelated studies.
The first study was introduced as an evaluation of a
recently developed personality questionnaire. Participants
first filled in an alleged personality questionnaire and
received bogus feedback to manipulate their NfU. This
was followed by a second short questionnaire study
containing the same questionnaire as used in Study 1,
including the four SANU items. Students were randomly
assigned to one of two feedback conditions and participated in groups of up to 4. At the conclusion, they were
thoroughly debriefed.
Manipulation of NfU. The participants filled in a
32-item questionnaire presented on a computer screen.
The questionnaire was constructed with regard to face
validity and supposedly measured four central personality traits. After completion, the computer displayed a value for each of these traits on a stanine
scale. The participants were asked by written instruction to copy these values from the screen on a paper
results sheet. For each dimension on the results sheet,
the margin between the values 4 and 6 was gray colored, indicating the values including 62% of the norm
group. High-NfU participants received a 5 on three of
the four dimensions and either a 4 or a 6 on the fourth.
Control participants received one score in this area (4)
and more diverse scores on the other three dimensions
(3, 7, and 8). In addition, a remark on the screen
informed participants about the alleged percentage of
identical answers in a reference population of 10,000

313

individuals (high NfU, between 79% and 85%; control,

between 36% and 41%). These numbers were adopted
from Snyder and Fromkin (1980). To further strengthen
the feedback, the experimenter made an oral comment
to each participant in the high-NfU condition while
looking at their results sheets. She chose randomly one
of the following phrases: Oh, you are in the gray
area; Hmm, exact average; or Youre just the standard mean, too. No comment was made to participants in the control condition. The exact numbers and
the comments were varied within the same group session to prevent suspicion.
Dependent measures and specific hypotheses. After
the bogus feedback, participants received the same
questionnaire as in Study 1 to measure NfU. High-NfU
participants were expected to score higher on the four
SANU items than those in the control condition.
Results and discussion. The SANU items were combined to form a single NfU index ( = .75). The
ANOVA yielded the predicted effect of the manipulation, F(1, 40) = 4.94, p < .05. Participants in the highNfU condition scored higher (M = 3.73, SD = 0.57)
than those in the control group (M = 3.31, SD = 0.70).
To further control for alternative explanations because
of the oral comment feedback, we checked for an effect
of the manipulation on the distractor item assessing
mood but found none, F < 1. Thus the manipulation of
NfU was successful.

Main Study
Overview. To manipulate NfU, participants received
the same false feedback as in the pilot study. They were
then exposed to majority versus minority influence.
This resulted in a 2 (high NfU vs. control) 2 (high vs.
low consensus) factorial design. The main dependent
variable was the attitude toward the target issue. We
expected that under high NfU, participants would yield
significantly less to majority influence. At the conclusion, participants answered an open-ended suspicion
probe, were then thoroughly debriefed, and were paid
3 for their participation.
Participants and design. Participants were 62
students (35 female, 26 male; mean age 23.9 years) of
various majors at the University of Bonn, Germany.
They volunteered for two allegedly unrelated studies.
The first study was introduced as an evaluation of a
recently developed personality questionnaire, followed
by a second study on text comprehension. Students
were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions
and participated in groups of up to 8.

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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

Manipulation of majorityminority influence. Participants received written instructions that the second study
explored mechanisms of text comprehension. Their task
was to read a text and form a general impression.
The headline of the text stated, A majority (minority)
of students of the University of Bonn argue for Curutao
Lake as a rewarding holiday destination. The text went
on to state that an informational event about Curutao
Lake had taken place at the University of Bonn. After
the presentation, the audience had been asked their
opinion about Curutao Lake. It turned out that a
majority of 83% (vs. a minority of 17%) had considered Curutao Lake a rewarding vacation spot. The text
continued presenting arguments that were brought forward by those in favor of the vacation spot. The issue
was chosen because it has been extensively pretested
and successfully used in other experiments on majority
influence (Erb et al., 1998; Erb, Bohner, Werth,
Hewstone, & Reinhard, 2006).
Dependent measures and specific hypotheses. A
booklet contained all dependent measures. The first
four questions on text comprehension (e.g., The text
was easy to comprehend) were filler items to maintain
the cover story. Then, three attitude items assessed the
overall attitude toward the vacation resort, for example,
I would recommend Curutao Lake as a destination of
travel. Seven further items tapped into participants
attitudes toward several aspects of the vacation spot.
Responses to each attitude item were collected on identical scales from 1 (do not agree at all) to 9 (fully agree).
An interaction was predicted for attitude measures such
that majority influence in the control condition would
disappear (or even reverse) in the high-NfU condition.
After that, participants were asked to estimate the
percentage of respondents who were in favor of Curutao
Lake (manipulation check). They then reported their age,
gender, major, and semester. Finally, two open-ended
questions tapped into suspicion regarding the true intent
of the study.

Results
We dropped two cases from analyses. A non-native
speaker reported severe comprehension problems; the
computer of another participant had a power shortage.
None of the other participants reported any suspicion.
The analyses are thus based on N = 60 cases. Dependent
measures were subjected to 2 2 ANOVA with the factors consensus (high vs. low) and NfU (high vs. control).
Manipulation checks. All participants had completed
the personality questionnaire, and their answers showed
no specific pattern that gave rise to suspicion. They all
had copied their results to the result sheets correctly and

Attitude Toward Curutao Lake

314

Minority
Majority
B

AB
AB
A

4
0
Control

High NfU

Feedback Manipulation

Figure 2

Mean attitude toward Curutao Lake on a 9-point rating

scale (+SE) as function of feedback manipulation (control
vs. high need for uniqueness [NfU]) and consensus
(minority vs. majority) in Study 2.
NOTE: n = 15 for all conditions. Different index letters indicate
mean differences in a post hoc Duncan test (alpha = .05).

therefore actively noticed the feedback. For the consensus measure, the ANOVA yielded a single main effect of
consensus, F(1, 56) = 674.54, p < .001, and no other
effects were significant, both p > .10. Participants estimated 20.60% consensus in the minority condition and
83.13% consensus in the majority condition. Thus, the
manipulation of consensus was also successful.
Attitude measures. All attitude items displayed a similar pattern of means. Nine of them were combined to
form a single attitude index ( = .81). The ANOVA on
this index yielded the predicted two-way interaction of
consensus by NfU, F(1, 56) = 6.47, p < .02, but no
main effects, both p > .21. Means (Figure 2) indicate
that in the control group, the majority was more influential than the minority, whereas in the high-NfU condition, this pattern reversed. Thus, the main hypothesis
of this experiment was confirmed.
Post hoc tests of simple effects revealed that the majority was less influential under high NfU than in the control
condition, t(56) = 2.69, p < .005. All other effects did
not reach the adjusted significance level for multiple comparisons. However, on a more descriptive level, participants in the control condition agreed more with the
majority than the minority, t(56) = 1.86, p < .04,
whereas the minority was marginally more influential
than the majority under high NfU, t(56) = 1.72, p < .09.

Discussion
Our main hypothesis was supported by the predicted
interaction of NfU by consensus on attitude judgments.

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Imhoff, Erb / UNIQUENESS BLOCKS CONFORMITY

Obviously, a high-consensus position appeared unattractive to high-NfU recipients. The results of this study
therefore support the hypothesis that majority influence
can be undermined under high NfU. Still, the proposed
motivational nature of the proposed effect has not yet
been demonstrated. We therefore conducted a third
study as a further test of our assumptions. We reasoned
that the impediment of majority influence under high
NfU would disappear if the motivation to regain
uniqueness was satisfied with a different means.
Moreover, it appeared desirable to replicate the effect
observed in Study 1 and 2 with different material.

STUDY 3
We have argued that a high NfU motivated participants in Studies 1 and 2 to resist majority influence. A
major assumption common to all well-established
accounts of human motivation is that a perceived discrepancy between a desired and an existing state motivates activities to eliminate it (e.g., Higgins, 1987;
Kruglanski, 1996). Another important motivation principle is that a desired state can be achieved through different means (Heider, 1958). Different means can be
functionally equivalent and hence can substitute each
other. Thus, given that the pattern of attitudes under high
NfU in Study 2 resulted from a motivational force, the
negative effect of high NfU on majority influence should
be canceled out if participants were given the opportunity
to regain uniqueness through alternative means prior to
the influence attempt. Study 3 tested this hypothesis.

Method
Overview. Study 3 followed Study 2 in most respects.
However, one further condition was added that was
presumed to satisfy a high NfU prior to the influence
setting. In addition to the control group and the highNfU group (as in Study 2), a third group was created that
received the high-NfU manipulation but then was given
an alternative means to regain uniqueness. Furthermore,
the persuasive setting was changed to replicate the findings from Study 2 with a different topic and a different
influence group.
Participants and design. A total of 161 students (52
female and 109 male; mean age 23.1 years) of various
majors at the University of Bonn, Germany, volunteered in
exchange for 3 or partial course credit. The design was
a 3 (control vs. high NfU vs. high NfU plus regain uniqueness) 2 (majority vs. minority influence) between-subjects
factorial. Students were randomly assigned to one of the
six conditions and participated in groups of up to 8.

315

Manipulation of NfU. The manipulation of NfU was

identical to that in Study 2. Then participants were told
that they would take part in a short study meant to
develop testing materials. One half of the high-NfU participants received a sheet that read Project for SelfConcept Research and were asked to name three
aspects that made them different from others and
that characterized them as an individual personality.
To think of three such aspects was pretested as a relatively easy task to accomplish within the given 5 min.
This created the regain-uniqueness condition. The other
half of the high-NfU group and the control group
received a sheet titled Project for Knowledge-Concept
Research and were asked to answer knowledge questions on geography (e.g., Name the member states of
former Yugoslavia.). Knowledge questions were chosen because they likely prevented any unusual or unique
remarks that might help to regain uniqueness. Pretests
showed that it took about 5 min to write down the
answers.
Manipulation of majorityminority influence. Participants received written instructions that their task was to
read a text and form a general impression. The headline of the text stated, A majority (minority) of respondents from the district of Rhein-Sieg argue for a new
Rhine tunnel next to Knigswinter. The message stated
that local residents had been interviewed via phone in
the context of a survey on the currently debated project.
In the majority condition, it was stated that a majority
of 83% respondents were in favor, whereas a minority
of 17% were opposed. Numbers were exactly vice versa
in the minority condition. Then, seven arguments
allegedly forwarded by those in favor of the tunnel were
presented.
Dependent measures and specific hypotheses. After
reading, participants filled in a questionnaire that contained all further dependent measures. The first four
questions were included to maintain the cover story.
Participants were then asked to indicate their attitudes
toward the Rhine tunnel on three attitude items (e.g.
The Rhine tunnel in Knigswinter should be built.).
We expected majority influence in the control condition
and no such influence or even minority influence in the
high-NfU condition, thus replicating the findings of
Study 2. In the high-NfU/regain-uniqueness condition,
we expected majority influence to reappear when compared to the high-NfU condition. Thus, a two-way
interaction of NfU by consensus on attitude judgments
was predicted.
After that, participants were asked to estimate the
percentage of respondents in favor of the tunnel (manipulation check). They then reported their age, gender,

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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

major, and semester. Finally, two open-ended questions

tapped into suspicion regarding intentions of the study.
At this point, participants were thoroughly debriefed,
thanked, and paid.

Results
All participants had completed the personality questionnaire, and their answers showed no specific pattern
that gave rise to suspicion. They all had copied their
results to the result sheets correctly.
Manipulation check. The manipulation check for the
consensus information revealed that 10 participants
had not indicated the consensus information correctly.
They were excluded from further analyses. Experimental
dropout was independent of condition, 2(5, N = 161) =
7.53, p > .18. The analyses are thus based on N = 151
cases. However, all results remained stable when the
10 cases were included in control analyses. None of the
remaining participants reported any suspicion.
As for the consensus estimates, in one cell, all participants reported the correct answer, producing a variance
of zero in this cell. Such heterogeneous variances are a
violation of the prerequisites to calculate a 2 3
ANOVA. We therefore conducted a one-way ANOVA
over all 6 conditions with a post hoc Dunnett-C test for
heterogenous variances. The ANOVA revealed a significant effect of condition on consensus, F = 19,174.67,
p < .001. The Dunnett-C tests showed that all three
experimental conditions that received the low-consensus
information gave significantly lower estimations of consensus than each of the three experimental conditions
with high-consensus information, all p < .001. None of
the conditions with identical consensus information differed from each other, all p > .20. Participants estimated
16.77% consensus in the minority condition and
83.04% consensus in the majority condition. Thus, the
manipulation of consensus was successful.
Attitude measures. Items were combined to form a single attitude index ( = .88). The ANOVA yielded the
predicted two-way interaction of consensus by NfU, F(1,
145) = 6.13, p < .004, but no main effects, both p >
.22. The majority was less influential in the high-NfU
condition than in either the control or in the highNfU/regain-uniqueness condition (Figure 3). Simple tests
showed that the majority was clearly more influential
than the minority in the control condition, t(145) = 3.16,
p < .005, whereas this reversed under high NfU, t(145) =
1.80, p < .04. Thus, the hypothesis that individuals
under high NfU yield less to majority influence was fully
supported, and again some weak evidence was found that
high NfU actually increased minority influence. For the

10
Attitude Toward Rhine Tunnel

316

Minority
Majority
8
B
6

B
AB

AB
A

0
Control

High Nfu

Regain
Uniqueness
Feedback Manipulation

Figure 3

Mean attitude toward Rhine tunnel on a 9-point rating

scale (+SE) as function of feedback manipulation (control
vs. high need for uniqueness [NfU] vs. regain uniqueness)
and consensus (minority vs. majority) in Study 3.
NOTE: n = 26 for control and majority; all other conditions, n = 25.
Different index letters indicate mean differences in a post hoc Duncan
test (alpha = .05).

regain-uniqueness condition, the results appeared somewhat less clear. Although participants agreed more with
the majority than did high-NfU participants, there was
only a slight tendency toward majority influence; means
did not significantly differ between the two consensus
conditions, t(145) = .78, p > .22. Presently it appears
that the regain-uniqueness procedure was not sufficiently
strong to totally resolve the NfU and thus may have left
participants in this condition with conflicting motives
that overall nullified the effect on attitudes. Nonetheless,
the hypothesis that an alternative means to regain
uniqueness would cancel out the effect of a high NfU on
majority influence was confirmed.

Discussion
The central hypothesis of this study was confirmed,
as we found the predicted interaction of NfU by consensus on attitude judgments. In the high-NfU condition, majority influence was undermined. The hypothesis
that high NfU motivates recipients to refuse agreement
with the majority received strong support. When highNfU participants were given an opportunity to regain
uniqueness by listing personality characteristics that
would describe them as unique, the blockade of majority influence disappeared. This is in line with the widely
acknowledged notion that a motivational state becomes
weaker or even disappears once the desired state has
been achieved through goal fulfilment or satisfaction
(e.g., Higgins, 1987; Kruglanski, 1996). The fact that

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Imhoff, Erb / UNIQUENESS BLOCKS CONFORMITY

the basic results of Study 1 and 2 were replicated in
Study 3 with a different influence group and a different
topic speaks to the generality of the proposed effect.

GENERAL DISCUSSION
This research demonstrated that majority influence
can be undermined when participants experience a high
NfU, either measured or experimentally manipulated.
The effect arose with different topics and different
delineations of the respective influence source, including
plain consensus delivered by an opinion poll result, a
socially relevant in-group of fellow students, and a
socially rather irrelevant out-group of nonspecified residents of an area different from where the targets of
influence would reside. Furthermore, operationalizations were chosen not to produce conditions of
enhanced message processing (e.g., Moscovici, 1980),
leniency toward the influence group (e.g., Crano, 2001),
the attribution of courage and commitment (e.g., Sigall
et al., 2006), and so forth, put forward by models to
explain minority influence. In fact, the influence sources
did not differ in any such variable but merely in the consensus on the respective position. Thus, the observed
block of majority influence under high NfU cannot
alternatively be explained by any concurrent model of
minority influence. Moreover, the proposed motivational character of the presented effect not only is in line
with the theoretical assumptions of uniqueness theory
(Snyder & Fromkin, 1980), research on deindividuation
(e.g., Zimbardo, 1969), and optimal distinctiveness
(Brewer, 1991; Hornsey & Jetten, 2004) but also was
empirically demonstrated. In Study 3, an alternative
means to regain uniqueness eliminated the effect of high
NfU on majority influence (adhering to the widely
accepted notion of mutual substitutability of different
means to fulfill the same motivational goal). Thus, feeling too similar to others appears to be a powerful motivational force that can make a majority position
subjectively unattractive, just for the sake of refusing the
most common position represented by high consensus.
Our finding that the strong majority advantage
reported throughout the literature was undermined by
high NfU may shed some new light on classical findings. In Aschs (1956) seminal study, for example, one
fourth of the participants never yielded to majority
influence. Postexperimental interviews provided some
narrative evidence that high NfU might have had an
impact on the willingness to conform. One completely
independent participant confessed, I was getting
almost a sadistic pleasure out of being different (Asch,
1956, p. 37). The participant went on to explain why he
displayed a nonconformist response style: Long years

317

of practice in being different from other children. Ive

never had any feeling that there was any virtue in being
like others. Im used to being different (Asch, 1956,
p. 38). Thus, we would predict that a high NfU will
reduce conformity with a majority in Asch-like influence settings. This prediction is in line with Bond and
Smiths (1996) analysis that less conformity appeared in
the Asch line-judging task when conducted in individualistic cultures, as individuality, that is, public demonstration of uniqueness, is more positively valued in
individualistic than in collectivistic cultures (see below).
Over and above the blockade of majority influence, to
a certain extent, two of the three studies delivered some
evidence that high NfU may even facilitate minority influence. In both Studies 2 and 3, at least slightly more agreement with the minority compared to the majority was
found under conditions of high NfU. Future research
may tap more directly into the relationship between high
NfU and minority influence. To most clearly distinguish
between the refusal of the majority position and the
adoption of the minority position, the critical design
would require a condition in which high-NfU participants were free to choose between nonconformity and
anticonformity (minority influence). It seems clear that
such motivational-based minority influence would be different from what has been described in the literature so
far. This is because the minoritys low consensus might
actually turn out to be an asset when recipients experience a high NfU, and minorities might receive more
agreement because (and not despite that) there are only
few who do it (see Introduction; Erb & Bohner, 2007).
Resisting majority influence as a means to regain a
sense of personal uniqueness complements the lists of
such means described in the realm of research on
uniqueness, deindividuation, and optimal distinctiveness. Besides such mere extending the list of possible
reactions to enhanced NfU (for a review, see Lynn &
Snyder, 2002), our research may also contribute to the
up-to-now underdeveloped discussion of how NfU
relates to social influence phenomena. For example,
Simonson and Nowlis (2000) provided evidence that
recipients high in NfU were less persuaded by sales promotion and advertising than those low in NfU. It may
appear, then, that recipients can make themselves appear
unique and distinct from others by generally resisting
influence attempts (Lynn & Snyder, 2002, p. 401). Our
studies, however, raise the possibility that it may matter
what kind of influence targets high-NfU recipients.
Other than presently assumed, high-NfU recipients may
very well be prone to influence if the source offers the
opportunity to see oneself as different from most others
because the proposed position is unusual and nonconsensual. Such considerations open up further venues for
future research.

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Another important contribution is the motivational

account for a social influence phenomenon. In their
handbook article, Cialdini and Trost (1998) discussed
how conformity or yielding to influence attempts can
help achieve the goals of behaving effectively, the goal
of building and maintaining social relationships, and
the goal of managing self-concept. Whereas the first two
have received considerable attention in social influence
research, the quoted evidence for the latter is only marginal. As Cialdini and Trost argued, People who value
independence and self-reliance may feel . . . uncomfortable upon finding out that they have conformed to
an incorrect response (p. 168). The results above provide evidence that this is neither the case only in hindsight nor only for incorrect responses. People who value
independence may actively avoid conforming to a
majority, as they may anticipate the uncomfortable feeling related to a deprived NfU when sharing an attitude
with a large group of others.
Potentially interesting about the effect of NfU on
social influence appear the facts that (a) it rests on a
motivational force that would render the majoritys
high consensus position unattractive (see discussion
above) and (b) it can be considered not only as a situational factor (state) but as a dispositional factor (trait)
as well. With regard to the latter aspect, our findings
may help answer the question of who resists majority
influence or even engages in minority dissenta question of considerable interest in organizational psychology and small-group research that has not yet received
adequate attention (De Dreu, 2007, p. 249). For
example, De Dreu, De Vries, Franssen, and Altink
(1999) found that extraverted individuals were more
willing to adopt a minority position, and Le Pine and
Van Dyne (1998) reported the same effect for individuals with high global self-esteem, at least under certain
conditions. On the basis of the present results, it seems
straightforward to predict that individuals who chronically experience a high NfU may also be likely to stand
up against the majority and voice dissenting views
within their groups and organizations.
Another question refers to the robustness of the
influence demonstrated here. To most clearly illustrate the proposed effect, we have chosen low-cost
situations in which penalties for deviation from the
majority were not to be expected. Things might be
different when the NfU collides with other important
concerns, for example, defending ones own attitude
already formed prior to the exposure to influence
attempts (e.g., Erb, Bohner, Rank, & Einwiller, 2002).
There may also be limitations determined by intercultural differences. According to Kim and Markus
(1999), the positive term uniqueness in Western
society corresponds with the negative term of deviance

in East Asian societies. Vignoles, Chryssochoou, and

Breakwell (2000) argued that the principle of personal distinctiveness is compatible with Eastern cultures and therefore universal but shows in different
forms. In individualistic cultures (e.g., United States,
Germany), uniqueness is reached primarily by emphasizing distinctiveness and differentiation from others,
whereas in societies with relational orientation
(e.g., China), it is more important to accentuate the
(unique) function of the individual role for the functioning of the group. From these analyses, one may
predict that in Eastern cultures, individuals would
prefer to distinguish themselves through unusual,
extremely normative (but not counternormative) attitudes and that minorities that promote group norms
more so and more extremely than the majority would
be specifically influential.
Our findings certainly have implications for the use
of so-called influence tactics in applied settings as well.
Influence agents often support their appeal with reference to the social proof (Cialdini, 1993; Erb, 1998),
claiming that a majority of others agree. In light of the
present findings, it seems necessary to carefully analyze
the influence situation before presenting high-consensus
information in support of ones own view: Such a strategy would be ill advised if recipients are motivated to
maintain or regain a feeling of uniqueness.
In conclusion, three studies demonstrated a previously undiscovered mechanism by which majority influence is undermined. A high NfU represents a strong
motivational force that (beyond other already described
effects) can result in resistance against majority influence. Perhaps theoretically most relevant here is the idea
that majority positions may not necessarily have an
advantage over minority positions and that therefore
the minority may not always require a compensatory
factor to be influential. Rather, our research points to
the possibility that there exist conditions under which a
minority position can be seen as positive in and for
itself, whereas the majoritys high consensus becomes a
liability with regard to their influence.

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