The authors examine whether conformity towards prevailing public opinions and pre-existing blame influences citizens' attribution of blame for public service failure, by using a between-group experimental design. The empirical analysis reveals that public opinion in favor of blame leads to increased blame attribution, while a contrary public opinion decreases citizens' blame. Likewise, the expected increase in citizens' blame resulting from pre-existing blame is supported. However, the absence of blame has no effect. Overall, the experiment supports the impact of conformity on citizens' blame.
The article is available here. Further information regarding the experiment are available here. The dataset and data analysis can be accessed here.