Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 334, Issue 6062, Pages 1578-1580Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1210280
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NSF [PHY-0848755]
- Searle Scholars Program
- Office of Naval Research [N00014-09-1-1074]
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [HR0011-09-1-0055]
- Royal Society
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Physics [848755] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Conflicting interests among group members are common when making collective decisions, yet failure to achieve consensus can be costly. Under these circumstances individuals may be susceptible to manipulation by a strongly opinionated, or extremist, minority. It has previously been argued, for humans and animals, that social groups containing individuals who are uninformed, or exhibit weak preferences, are particularly vulnerable to such manipulative agents. Here, we use theory and experiment to demonstrate that, for a wide range of conditions, a strongly opinionated minority can dictate group choice, but the presence of uninformed individuals spontaneously inhibits this process, returning control to the numerical majority. Our results emphasize the role of uninformed individuals in achieving democratic consensus amid internal group conflict and informational constraints.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available