Adolescent conformist behaviour in making aesthetic judgments under pressure of authority figures and peer pressure

The aim of the research was to determine whether adolescent aesthetic judgments are subject to group pressure, and whether there is a difference in their conformist behaviour, depending on whether the pressure group is composed of peers or scientific authorities, as well as to establish the presence of aesthetic judgments in a narrower or broader sense. The sample consisted of 52 participants of Petnica Research Centre3. The respondents were shown artistic paintings in pairs in which one painting always had a significantly greater aesthetic value than the other one. The task was to evaluate which painting had a greater aesthetic value and which painting they would keep in their room. There were three groups involved in the research: a control group that made judgments on its own and in writing, and two experimental ones: the first one made judgments in the presence of scientific authorities, while the second group did the same in the presence of their peers. Afterwards, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the respondents to check the level of conformity awareness. The analysis of variance shows that there is an effect of a group on the selection of the paintings with a lower aesthetic value for both questions (on the aesthetic value and on which painting they would put on the wall), and the post-hoc test (LSD test) confirms statistically significant differences between all three groups only on the task of aesthetic judgments in a narrower sense, namely, the respondents who were in the authority group conformed more to the majority judgment than those who were in the peer group. The question of which of the two paintings they would put on the wall revealed a statistically significant difference only between the control and the two experimental groups, but not between the experimental ones, which indicates information conformism. The differences in the respondents’ awareness of yielding under social pressure were not found to be significant in this research, and such awareness was not even identified.