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. For example, research by Pronin, Berger, and Molouki (2007) found that Princeton students evaluated themselves as much less likely to conform compared to the average Princeton student. Although the results were convincing, this study was conducted using only 40 participants from a prestigious university, which raises potential concerns about the replicability and generalizability of their findings. We replicated this study in order to generalize the findings to a broader range of participants and use a larger sample size. We also extended the previous research to assess if participants would evaluate a close friend the same as the self in regard to perceptions of conformity. Consistent with the original study, we found that ASU students thought they conformed less than their peers. However, they reported that their close friend conformed as much as their peers. The results of our replication generalize the original findings to a new sample of participants and also show that this effect is specific to perceptions of the self vs. others and not when comparing a close friend to others.