Jones Matthew I, Christakis Nicholas A
Yale Institute for Network Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Department of Sociology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Dec 4;14(1):30183. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-81636-z.
Consensus formation is a complex process, particularly in networked groups. When individuals are incentivized to dig in and refuse to compromise, leaders may be essential to guiding the group to consensus. Specifically, the relative geodesic position of leaders could be important for reaching consensus. Separately, groups searching for consensus can be confounded by noisy signals in which individuals are given false information about the actions of their fellow group members. We tested the effects of the geodesic distance between leaders (geodesic distance ranging from 1 to 4) and of noise (noise levels at 0%, 5%, and 10%) by recruiting participants (N = 3,456) for a set of experiments (n = 216 groups). We find that noise makes groups less likely to reach consensus, and the groups that do reach consensus take longer to find it. We find that leadership changes the behavior of both leaders and followers in important ways (for instance, being labeled a leader makes people more likely to 'go with the flow'). However, we find no evidence that the geodesic distance between leaders is a significant factor in the probability of reaching consensus. While other network properties of leaders undoubtedly affect consensus formation, the distance between leaders in network subgroups appears not to matter.
共识形成是一个复杂的过程，尤其是在网络群体中。当个体受到激励而坚持己见并拒绝妥协时，领导者对于引导群体达成共识可能至关重要。具体而言，领导者的相对测地线位置对于达成共识可能很重要。另外，寻求共识的群体可能会被噪声信号所干扰，在这些信号中，个体被给予关于其他群体成员行为的虚假信息。我们通过招募参与者（N = 3456）进行了一组实验（n = 216个群体），测试了领导者之间的测地线距离（测地线距离范围为1至4）和噪声（噪声水平分别为0%、5%和10%）的影响。我们发现，噪声使群体达成共识的可能性降低，而那些确实达成共识的群体找到共识所需的时间更长。我们发现，领导力在重要方面改变了领导者和追随者的行为（例如，被标记为领导者会使人们更有可能“随波逐流”）。然而，我们没有发现证据表明领导者之间的测地线距离是达成共识概率的一个重要因素。虽然领导者的其他网络属性无疑会影响共识形成，但网络子群体中领导者之间的距离似乎并不重要。
