Conformity

by Cass R Sunstein

  28 See Anne Phillips, The Politics of Presence (1995); see also Iris Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference 183–91 (1994).

  29 See Richard L. Revesz, Environmental Regulation, Ideology, and the DC Circuit, 83 Va. L. Rev. 1717 (1997); Frank Cross and Emerson Tiller, Judicial Partisanship and Obedience to Legal Doctrine, 107 Yale L.J. 2155 (1998).

  30 See Cass R. Sunstein et al., Are Judges Political? (2006); and Richard L. Revesz, Ideology, Collegiality, and the DC Circuit, 85 Va. L. Rev. 805, 808 (1999). See also the introduction, note 3, for many references. Also valuable are Jonathan P. Kastellec, Hierarchical and Collegial Politics on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 73 J. Pol. 345 (2011); Jonathan P. Kastellec, Racial Diversity and Judicial Influence on Appellate Courts, 57 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 167 (2013); William Landes et al., Rational Judicial Behavior: A Statistical Study, 1 J. Legal Analysis 775 (2009).

  31 See Revesz, Ideology, supra note 30, at 805, 808.

  32 See id. at 808.

  33 Calculated from Revesz, Environmental Regulation, supra note 29, at 1752.

  34 See id. at 1754.

  35 See Landes et al., supra note 30; Sunstein et al., Are Judges Political? supra note 30.

  36 See Thomas Miles and Cass R. Sunstein, The Real World of Arbitrariness Review, 75 U. Chi. L. Rev. 761 (2008); Revesz, Environmental Regulation, supra note 29, at 1754.

  37 See Miles and Sunstein, supra note 36.

  38 See id.

  39 See Revesz, Environmental Regulation, supra note 29, at 1754.

  40 See id. at 1754.

  41 See id. at 1753.

  42 See id.

  43 See Cross and Tiller, supra note 29, at 2155. Notably, panel effects and whistleblower effects are not found in a more recent, comprehensive study. See Kent H. Barnett et al., Administrative Law’s Political Dynamics, 71 Vand. L. Rev. 1463 (2018).

  44 See Chevron v. NRDC, 467 US 837 (1984).

  45 See Cross and Tiller, supra note 29, at 2169.

  46 Constructed on the basis of data in Cross and Tiller, id., at 2172–73.

  47 See id. at 2174–76. Note, however, that Barnett et al., supra note 43, find no whistleblower effects.

  48 See Cross and Tiller, supra note 29, at 2174–76.

  49 See Revesz, Environmental Regulation, supra note 29, at 1755.

  50 Landes et al., supra note 30; Sunstein et al., supra note 30.

  51 See Robert Baron et al., Group Process, Group Decision, Group Action 74 (2d ed. 1999).

  52 See Revesz, Environmental Regulation, supra note 29, at 2175.

  53 See David A. Strauss and Cass R. Sunstein, The Senate, the Constitution, and the Confirmation Process, 101 Yale L.J. 1491 (1992).

  54 See Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932, 944 (5th Cir. 1996); Grutter v. Bollinger, 288 F.3d 732 (6th Cir. 2002).

  55 See Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 US 265 (1978 [opinion of Powell, J.]).

  56 See id. at 311–12.

  57 Id. at 313.

  58 Id.

  59 Id. at 314.

  60 Id.

  61 See id. at 316–30.

  62 Id. at 317.

  63 Id.

  64 See Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 US 306 (2003); and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 US 244 (2003).

  65 See City of Richmond v. Croson, 488 US 469, 477 (1989).

  66 See United States v. Paradise, 480 US 149 (1987); and Local No. 93, International Association of Firefighters v. Cleveland, 478 US 616 (1987).

  67 For general discussion, see Kathleen M. Sullivan, Sins of Discrimination: Last Term’s Affirmative Action Cases, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 78, 96 (1986): “Public and private employers might choose to implement affirmative action for many reasons other than to purge their own past sins of discrimination. The Jackson school board, for example, said it had done so in part to improve the quality of education in Jackson—whether by improving black students’ performance or by dispelling for black and white students alike any idea that white supremacy governs our social institutions. Other employers might advance different forward-looking reasons for affirmative action: improving their services to black constituencies, averting racial tension over the allocation of jobs in a community, or increasing the diversity of a work force, to name but a few examples. Or they might adopt affirmative action simply to eliminate from their operations all de facto embodiment of a system of racial caste. All of these reasons aspire to a racially integrated future, but none reduces to ‘racial balancing for its own sake.’”

  68 See Sandra Day O’Connor, Thurgood Marshall: The Influence of a Reconteur, 44 Stan. L. Rev. 1217, 1217, 1220 (1992).

  Index

  acceptance, compliance and, 20

  acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 72

  actions and statements of others, ix–x, 5–6

  affection, 11

  affirmative action, 99, 171n67; constitutionality of, 139; diversity and, 110, 140–41; in higher education, 136–46; racial discrimination and, 142–43; Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 139–42, 171n55

  Affordable Care Act, 80

  AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), 72

  altruism, 91

  Anderson, Hans Christian, 58–59, 158n48

  anti-apartheid movement, 74

  antifederalists, 115

  antislavery movement, 73

  argument pools, 121, 130

  arguments, in groups, 86

  Asch, Solomon, 15–18, 31, 33, 95, 103; on confederate group size, 24–25; on conformity, 18–19; Social Psychology, 169n21

  authoritarianism, 5, 58

  authority: of experimenter, 104; of law, 109; moral, 9, 105

  availability cascades, 75–76; effects of, 76–77

  availability heuristic, 74–75

  bans: compliance with, 109; on conduct, 102–3; on smoking, 102–3, 149

  Bayes’s rule, 46, 162n16

  behavior: cascade, 52, 64; good, 101; group, 110; judicial behavior study, 122–27; social influence and, 7; team, 91

  biases, 74

  bicameralism, 5, 117, 149

  bipartisanship, 133–34

  boundedly rational cascades, 74–77

  Brandeis, Louis, x, 153n3

  cascade behavior, 52, 64

  cascades, 35; availability, 75–77; boundedly rational, 74–77; breaking, 47–62; compliance with, 104; conformity experiments and, 64; Constitution and, 115–18; effects, 73–74; fashion leaders, 47–51; group polarization and, 81; informed cascade breakers, 47–51; informed people and, 48–49; judiciary and, 53–54; likelihood of, 37; majority rule and, 52; making, 47–62; noncompliance with, 109; occurrence of, 147–48; participants, 53; reputational, 68–74; rewarding correct outcomes and, 51–62; shattering mechanism, 48–49. See also informational cascades

  Chevron v. NRDC, 127, 132

  City of Richmond v. Croson, 171n65

  civil disobedience: phenomenon of, 109; preconditions for, 34

  civil liberties: dissent and, 73; reputational cascades and, 71

  climate change, 42, 47–48

  cognitive diversity, 10; in higher education, 137–38, 142

  Communism, ix

  compliance: acceptance and, 20; with bans on public smoking, 102–3; cascades, 104; with law, 34, 102, 107; with social norms, 108

  Condorcet jury theorem, 164n1

  conduct, banned, 102–3

  confederates: in groups, 13–15; group size, 24–25; unanimous, 103

  confidence, 23, 86; extremism and, 93; social influence and, 11

  confidence heuristic, 14

  confidentiality, 63–67

  conformists, 57, 150–51; dissenters and, 4; sensory perception studies and, 18

  conformity effect, 26

  Congress, U.S., 134

  Constitution, U.S., 99; advocates of, 115; affirmative action and, 139; antifederalists and, 115; bicameralism, 5, 117; cascade effects and, 115–18; checks and balances, 117–18; deliberation and, 116–17; design, 114–22; diversity and, 110, 114–15; freedom of association, 119–21; f
reedom of speech, 119–20; group polarization and, 115–17; interpretation, 135; right to instruct representatives and, 116; Supreme Court justice appointments, 135

  consumer choice, social influence and, 36

  contrarians, 55–56

  convictions, in groups, 97

  corporate corruption, 69

  corrective information, 40–41

  corroboration, 86–87

  courts of appeals, 43; diversity in, 134

  crippled epistemology, 8

  culture, 16–17, 159n57; deviant subcultures, 108–9

  decreasing conformity, 22–27; financial rewards and, 22–24

  defiance, 33

  deliberation: Constitution and, 116–17; extremism and, 95; group, 79–80; juries and, 2–3, 82, 89–90; politics and, 1–2, 114; process of, 169n21

  deliberative democracy, 10, 99, 114–15, 149

  democratic institutions: dissent in, 111–12; diversity in, 111–12; war and, 113

  depolarization, 96–97

  deviance, x–xi; punishing, 60; social impact of, 1

  deviant subcultures, 108–9

  deviation, visible, 19

  Dictator Game, 91

  dictatorships, 111–12, 113

  disclosers, 55–56; encouraging, 61

  disclosure: conformity pressures and, 65; freedom of association and, 121; importance of, 148; public opinion and, 67

  disclosure of information, 19; inaccurate information, 63–64; in institutional design, 54–55, 148

  discrimination: racial, 138–39, 141–43; sex, 154n3

  discussion, 169n21

  dissent: benefits of, 4, 7, 150–51; civil liberties and, 73; in democratic institutions, 111–12; investment club study and, 25; judicial, 53–54, 99, 129–30, 132–33; outcomes, 61; social influences of, 1; war and, 61–62, 110–13; in World War II, 5

  dissenters, 150–51; conformists and, 4; contrarians, 55–56; disclosers, 55–56; encouraging, 61; self-serving, 66; social influence of, 11, 111; in social media, 66; value of, 59; would-be, 27; wrong, 62

  diversity: affirmative action and, 110, 140–41; cognitive, 10, 137–38, 142; Constitution and, 110, 114–15; in courts of appeals, 134; in democratic institutions, 111–12; Federalism and, 118; groups and, 120; in higher education, 136–46; ideological, 99; judiciary and, 127–30, 132, 134–36; political, 127–29, 150, 153n3; racial, 10, 99, 138–39, 150; reasonable, 134–35; in Supreme Court, 143, 150; value of, 144–45

  echo chambers, 5

  electric shock experiment, 28–33; morality and, 33–34; obedience and, 30–31; subjects, 33

  “The Emperor’s New Clothes” tale (The Emperor’s New Suit, Anderson), 58–59, 158n48

  Endangered Species Act, 42

  enforcement: of law, 101, 103–5; norm management and, 106; private, 103–6

  environmental movement, 73–74

  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 129–30

  errors, 147; group error study, 84–85; heuristic and, 77; informational cascades and, 44

  ethnic identifications, reputational pressures and, 70–71

  experimenter, 160n58; authority of, 104

  expertise, 28–34; deference to, 32

  extremism, 5, 7–8, 24, 86–87, 167n35; confidence and, 93; deliberation and, 95; group influences tempering, 133–34; group polarization and, 80, 93–99

  Facebook, xii, 50; group polarization on, 81; local reputational cascades on, 72

  facts: conformity and, 79; group polarization and, 95

  fake news, 50, 62, 64

  fashion leaders, 47–51; information and, 49–50; noncompliance cascades and, 109; on social media, 50

  Federalism, 118; antifederalists, 115

  feuds, 83

  freedom of association, 71–72, 119–21; disclosure and, 121; group polarization and, 120–21

  freedom of speech, 5, 62, 71, 119–20

  free riders, 7

  group decisions: majority rule, 96; reputational cascades and, 69; unanimity requirements, 96

  group identification experiment, 94–95

  group immersion condition, 94

  group influences: extremism tempered by, 133–34; judicial behavior and, 123

  group polarization, 10, 79–100; argument pool and, 86; basic phenomenon, 79–83; cascades and, 81; Condorcet jury theorem and, 164n1; Constitution and, 115–17; dampening experiment, 97–98; decreased, 94; deliberating groups and, 79–80; depolarization, 96–97; extremism and, 80, 93–99; facts and, 95; freedom of association and, 120–21; heightened, 93; increased, 94; informational influences, 85–86; iterated polarization games, 121; judicial behavior study and, 125–26; juries and, 82–83; median in, 98; monetary awards, 89–90; outrage and, 83–84; punitive intentions and punitive damage awards study, 81–82; reasons for, 85–88; reputational cascades and, 88; self-categorization, 166n34; social comparison and, 87–88; in social media, 81; study, 84–85

  groups: advantages of, 95–96; arguments, 86; behavior, 110; belongingness, 94; confederates in, 13–15; convictions in, 97; deliberating, 79–80; diversity and, 120; error study, 84–85; experiments, 95–96; hidden profiles in, 84–86; informational cascades in, 41–42; information disclosure and, 19; legal problems and, 99; membership, 26; reactive devaluation, 26; rhetorical advantage and, 92; self-silencing in, 84–85; sensory perception studies, 12–18; size of, 24–25, 164n1; social influence of, 11; team behavior, 91

  Grutter v. Bollinger, 171n64

  Gulick, Luther, 111–13

  Hamilton, Alexander, 115, 117, 149, 168n21; on judicial power, 119

  Harrington, Brooke, 25

  heterogeneity, 99, 149

  heuristic: availability, 74–75; confidence, 14; errors and, 77

  hidden profiles, 84–86; social comparison and, 88

  higher education: affirmative action in, 136–46; cognitive diversity in, 137–38, 142; diversity in, 136–46; merit and, 136–37; racial discrimination in, 138–39, 141–42; racial diversity in, 138–39, 150; racial quotas, 138–41

  Holocaust, ix; obedience and, 31

  homogeneity, 114–15

  hormone therapy, 38–41, 48

  House of Representatives, U.S., 116–18

  ideological diversity, 99

  imitation, 23–24

  immigration, 80

  increasing conformity, 22–27; financial rewards and, 22–24

  individual condition, 94

  information: actions, statements of others and, 5–6; conformity and deprivation of, 4; corrective, 40–41; disclosure of, 19, 54–55, 148; disclosure of inaccurate, 63–64; fashion leaders and, 49–50; flows, 112; judgments of others, 14; private, 40, 44, 70

  informational cascades, 36–37; error and, 44; example, 38–39; experiments, 44–46, 48–49; in groups, 41–42; institutional design and, 45; in law, 41–42; mechanics of, 38–47; in medical field, 38–41; participants in, 40, 43; private information and, 40, 44; problems stemming from, 39–40; signals and, 38; social media and, 50–51

  informational externality, 52

  informational influences, group polarization, 85–86

  institutional design: disclosure of information in, 54–55, 148; informational cascades and, 45; norm management and, 110

  International Association of Firefighters v. Cleveland, 171n66

  Internet, x–xi

  investment club study, 25–26

  iterated polarization games, 121

  Jefferson, Thomas, 117–18

  judicial behavior study, 122–27; group polarization and, 125–26; political parties and, 123–27; social influence and, 125

  judicial power, 119

  judiciary, 122–36; argument pool, 130; cascades and, 53–54; dissent, 53–54, 99, 129–30, 132–33; diversity and, 127–30, 132, 134–36; go along concurrence, 56–57; panel effects, 123, 153n3; polarization, 131; political diversity and, 127–30, 153n3; political parties and appointing, 131; presidential appointments, 131, 135; safeguards, 134; sex discrimination cases, 154n3; votes and decis
ions, 3–4

  juries: Condorcet jury theorem, 164n1; deliberation and, 2–3, 82, 89–90; monetary awards, 89–90; punishment verdict, 82

  law, 21; authority of, 109; banned conduct, 102–3; compliance with, 34, 102, 107; effectiveness of, 104–5, 148–49; Endangered Species Act, 42; enforcement, 101, 103–6; expressive function of, 101, 148–49; groups and, 99; informational cascades in, 41–42; institutions and, 101; moral authority, 9, 105; noncompliance cascades, 109; noncompliance with, 107; as norm management, 104, 106–10; private enforcement of, 103–6; public and, 104–5; as signal, 102–5; social influence of, 8–9; social values and effectiveness of, 105; tax, 109–10

  law violations, 106, 107–8; private support for, 108; in subcommunity, 101; visibility of, 101, 103–4, 109; widespread, 109–10

  legislature: president and, 118; reputational cascades and, 69–70; social influence and, 8

  local reputational cascades, 72

  Madison, James, 120

  majority consensus, 24

  majority rule, 51–62, 164n1; cascade behavior and, 52, 64; experiment, 51–52; group decisions, 96

  Marshall, Thurgood, 143

  media, 76. See also social media

  #MeToo movement, 9, 74

  Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 169n27

  Milgram, Stanley, 28–34, 104, 160n58

  Mill, John Stuart, 21, 155n10

  minority views, 156n8, 159n55

  monetary awards, 165n10; juries and, 89–90

  moral authority, of law, 9, 105

  morality, 21; electric shock experiment and, 33–34; social influence on, 34

  music download study, 35–37

  nationalism, ix

  Nazism, 31, 74

  noncompliance: cascades, 109; with law, 107

  nonconformity, 57; punishment of, 66

  Nordhaus, William, 48