Discussion
This research provides evidence regarding the causal effect of conformity on group performance in stable and variable environments. Drawing on studies in the evolution of culture and the social transmission of information (Boyd & Richerson, Our experimental design builds on the works of Rakow and Miler (The results do not provide support for the hypothesis that conformity increases group performance in stable conditions (H1). High conformity groups did perform better in this stage, but the current analysis does not permit rejecting the null hypothesis (Individual-level analyses within groups provide further insights into the mechanisms that account for the group-level results. In a stable environment both asocial (payoff) and social (minority/majority opinion) information appear to influence behavior. Notably, the two appear to exert a similar influence on the choices of individuals in the two group conditions (social influence is more influential on members of high conformity groups, but this difference is statistically insignificant at this stage of the game: Specifically, the individual-level analyses suggest that low conformity within groups facilitates greater adaptability in the use of social information. When social information is useful (stable environment), low conformity groups allot similar (though somewhat lower) weight to social information as high-conformity groups. However, faced with indications of a change in the environment, low-conformity group members tend to allocate less weight to social information, whereas high-conformity groups maintain the same level of decision weight for this information.To the best of our knowledge, these findings are the first to provide human behavioral evidence for the causal effect of conformity on the performance and adaptability of groups. These findings support evolutionary models of social transmission of information (Boyd & Richerson, The results of this research correspond to the findings of Lejarraga et al. (