Do Consumers of All Social Classes Prefer Best Sellers? Three Preregistered Replication Studies of Na et al. (2016)

This report presents three preregistered replication studies on the role of social class in the tendency to align one’s product choices with those of others. The original research found that working-class Americans were more likely to conform to the majority’s product choice compared to middle-class Americans. These class-based differences in conformity were explained by a more pronounced interdependent self-construal among lower-class compared to higher-class individuals. However, empirical evidence for a negative relationship between social class and an interdependent self-construal is mixed, which also calls into question the robustness of its relationship with conformity. The aim of the present research was to clarify the generalizability and replicability of the role of social class in conformity in product choices, while taking into account the cultural context. Thus, we conducted three preregistered replications of the original experiment, two of them with German samples and one with a U.S. sample (total N = 592). None of the studies were able to replicate the negative relationship between social class and the tendency to adjust one’s product choices to the preferences of the majority. The relationship was not significant in the German samples and it even pointed in the opposite direction as expected in the U.S. sample. These results suggest that the generalizability of the relationship between social class and the tendency to follow social preferences is more limited than previously thought. We highlight the importance of conducting conceptual replication studies using different operationalizations of conformity and adopting a cross-cultural perspective on social class.