Personal Judgments are Influenced by Group Opinion But Just for 3 Days

Influenced by group opinion people do alter their personal judgments, but for less than a week, a new study claims.

The latest research documented in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveals that when being exposed to other's opinion there is a social pressure to alter one's judgment, and this change stays for just three days. This phenomenon of altering personal judgment to fall in line with another group is a very well known psychological phenomenon.

"Our findings suggest that exposure to others' opinions does indeed change our own private opinions - but it doesn't change them forever," says psychological scientist and study author Rongjun Yu of South China Normal University. "Just like working memory can hold about 7 items and a drug can be effective for certain amount of time, social influence seems to have a limited time window for effectiveness."

What remains a mystery is whether the social conformity that is often observed, replicates public agreement in order to fit well in a group and stave off social rejection or for private acceptance that further leads to a genuine change in personal opinion that remains the same irrespective of the social influence.

To solve this, researchers conducted a study in the lab for which they selected Chinese College students to take part in a study to find out how people perceive facial attractiveness. As a part of the study the researchers allowed the students to view 280 digital photographs of young adult Chinese woman and then they were asked to rate the attractiveness of each face on a scale of 1-8.

After rating a picture the subjects viewed the claimed average ratings of the other participants. It was noticed that the group average matched the participants' ratings just 25 percent of the time and at other times, the group average fell 1,2 or 3 points above or below the participant's rating.

After this, the same participants were again called for a lab test after either 1 day, 3 days, 7 days or 3 months.

The results were as expected, The participants personal judgment swayed toward the group norm when they were made to rate the photos either after 1 or 3 days of the first test.

When the intervention period was longer i.e. either 7 days or 3 months, the researchers found no evidence of social conformity.

The researchers claim, "The fact that participants' opinions were swayed for up to 3 days suggests more than a superficial lab-based effect - rather, group norms seem to have had a genuine, albeit brief, impact on participants' privately held opinions."

The researchers are still puzzled as to why the effect lasts for just three days and not more. To solve this they plan on investigating whether there is a neurological reason for the duration of the effect.