Tendency to Conform: A New Measure and its Relationship to Psychological Reactance

This study assessed the relationship between two important constructs in social psychology, conformity and psychological reactance, which are suggested to be negatively related, i.e., a person higher in the tendency to conform will score lower on psychological reactance and vice versa. The two constructs were measured by multi-item self-report scales, the Therapeutic Reactance Scale of Dowd, et al. and a new tendency to conform scale constructed for this study. Data from a survey of 423 undergraduate students were used to test the hypothesis that scores on the scales were negatively correlated. The hypothesized relationship was positively supported by a significant but only moderately sized correlation (r =-.32, p <.001).