Tell people what expert critics think of a set of pictures, and most of them will quietly move their own taste toward the experts. In a new experiment, that shift did not fade the next day: it held for a week or more, and in some ways grew stronger after the moment people saw the critics’ verdicts.
The study, “Social conformity of aesthetic values,” is by Yewon Rhee, Hassan Aleem, Kathleen B. Mather and Norberto M. Grzywacz, and appears in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (2026).
Most participants moved toward the critics
The researchers showed participants expert-critic ratings of visual “artworks” and then tracked whether people changed their own ratings as a result. Most did, adjusting their aesthetic values to get closer to the experts.
People conformed in different ways. Some followed the experts’ strongest likes, some their strongest dislikes, and some both.
The effect tended to be long-lasting, continuing for a week or more. Compliance tended to rise after the day of expert exposure rather than wearing off.
Who conforms most depends on background and personality
The degree of conformity varied with country of residence, level of education, people’s initial aesthetic preferences and their interest in art. A personality trait, the need for closure, also influenced how far people shifted.
From these results, the authors hypothesize that both social learning and reinforcement learning contribute to aesthetic conformity. They also propose that current educational paradigms may be making social conformity worse “by emphasizing respect for authority-figure information rather than critical thinking.”
Study Details:
- Title: Social conformity of aesthetic values
- Authors: Yewon Rhee, Hassan Aleem, Kathleen B. Mather, Norberto M. Grzywacz
- Journal: Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
- Publication Date: April 27, 2026 (online first; forthcoming in print)
- DOI: 10.1037/aca0000862