How Convincing Is a Crowd? Quantifying the Persuasiveness of a Consensus for Different Individuals and Types of Claims
通过模拟社交媒体实验，研究共识线索对不同个体和不同类型主张的说服力差异，发现几乎所有人都受共识影响，且共识对更可知的主张说服力更强。
A powerful cue when reasoning is whether an apparent consensus has been reached. However, we do not yet know how the strength of this cue varies between different individuals and types of claims. In the current study ( N = 78 U.S. adults, recruited from Prolific), we evaluated this with a realistic mock social-media paradigm in which each participant evaluated 60 diverse, real-world claims based on posts from people who either disagreed with each other, formed a consensus independently, or formed a consensus using shared sources. Almost all participants revised their beliefs to align with the consensus; many also qualitatively changed their minds. A consensus was also more persuasive for claims more likely to have a ground truth (i.e., more knowable claims). Although most people were insensitive to consensus independence, some were more persuaded by a consensus formed independently, whereas some were equally convinced by a consensus formed using the same sources.