Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds

Classic and recent studies demonstrate how we fall for the ‘tyranny of the majority' and conform to the dominant trend when uncertain. However, in many social interactions outside of the laboratory, there is rarely a clearly identified majority and discerning who to follow might be challenging....

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Autores principales: Navajas, Joaquín, Armand, Oriane, Moran, Rani, Bahrami, Bahador, Deroy, Ophelia
Formato: Artículo
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Royal Society Open Science 2022
Materias:
diversity
herding
decision-making
groupbehaviour
social interaction
Acceso en línea:https://repositorio.utdt.edu/handle/20.500.13098/11468
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191497
Aporte de:
Repositorio Digital Universidad Torcuato Di Tella de Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
id I57-R163-20.500.13098-11468
record_format dspace
spelling I57-R163-20.500.13098-114682025-08-11T17:58:52Z Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds Navajas, Joaquín Armand, Oriane Moran, Rani Bahrami, Bahador Deroy, Ophelia diversity herding decision-making groupbehaviour social interaction Classic and recent studies demonstrate how we fall for the ‘tyranny of the majority' and conform to the dominant trend when uncertain. However, in many social interactions outside of the laboratory, there is rarely a clearly identified majority and discerning who to follow might be challenging. Here, we asked whether in such conditions herding behaviour depends on a key statistical property of social information: the variance of opinions in a group. We selected a task domain where opinions are widely variable and asked participants (N = 650) to privately estimate the price of eight anonymous paintings. Then, in groups of five, they discussed and agreed on a shared estimate for four paintings. Finally, they provided revised individual estimates for all paintings. As predicted (https://osf.io/s89w4), we observed that group members converged to each other and boosted their confidence following social interaction. We also found evidence supporting the hypothesis that the more diverse groups show greater convergence, suggesting that the variance of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds. Overall, these findings empirically examine how, in the absence of a clear majority, the distribution of opinions relates to subjective feelings of confidence and herding behaviour. Royal Society Open Science Royal Society Open Science 2022-11-29T19:06:50Z 2022-11-29T19:06:50Z 2022 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Navajas J, Armand O, Moran R,Bahrami B, Deroy O. 2022 Diversity of opinionspromotes herding in uncertain crowds.R. Soc.Open Sci.9: 191497.https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191497 https://repositorio.utdt.edu/handle/20.500.13098/11468 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191497 eng R. Soc.Open Sci.9: 191497 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ p.1-15 application/pdf application/pdf
institution Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
institution_str I-57
repository_str R-163
collection Repositorio Digital Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
language Inglés
orig_language_str_mv eng
topic diversity
herding
decision-making
groupbehaviour
social interaction
spellingShingle diversity
herding
decision-making
groupbehaviour
social interaction
Navajas, Joaquín
Armand, Oriane
Moran, Rani
Bahrami, Bahador
Deroy, Ophelia
Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
topic_facet diversity
herding
decision-making
groupbehaviour
social interaction
description Classic and recent studies demonstrate how we fall for the ‘tyranny of the majority' and conform to the dominant trend when uncertain. However, in many social interactions outside of the laboratory, there is rarely a clearly identified majority and discerning who to follow might be challenging. Here, we asked whether in such conditions herding behaviour depends on a key statistical property of social information: the variance of opinions in a group. We selected a task domain where opinions are widely variable and asked participants (N = 650) to privately estimate the price of eight anonymous paintings. Then, in groups of five, they discussed and agreed on a shared estimate for four paintings. Finally, they provided revised individual estimates for all paintings. As predicted (https://osf.io/s89w4), we observed that group members converged to each other and boosted their confidence following social interaction. We also found evidence supporting the hypothesis that the more diverse groups show greater convergence, suggesting that the variance of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds. Overall, these findings empirically examine how, in the absence of a clear majority, the distribution of opinions relates to subjective feelings of confidence and herding behaviour.
format Artículo
author Navajas, Joaquín
Armand, Oriane
Moran, Rani
Bahrami, Bahador
Deroy, Ophelia
author_facet Navajas, Joaquín
Armand, Oriane
Moran, Rani
Bahrami, Bahador
Deroy, Ophelia
author_sort Navajas, Joaquín
title Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
title_short Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
title_full Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
title_fullStr Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
title_full_unstemmed Diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
title_sort diversity of opinions promotes herding in uncertain crowds
publisher Royal Society Open Science
publishDate 2022
url https://repositorio.utdt.edu/handle/20.500.13098/11468
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191497
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AT armandoriane diversityofopinionspromotesherdinginuncertaincrowds
AT moranrani diversityofopinionspromotesherdinginuncertaincrowds
AT bahramibahador diversityofopinionspromotesherdinginuncertaincrowds
AT deroyophelia diversityofopinionspromotesherdinginuncertaincrowds
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