Majority rules: how good are we at aggregating convergent opinions?

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Behavioral Economics
• Decision Sciences

Background:

• Majority rule is a common decision-making heuristic.
• Understanding when individuals follow majority opinion is crucial for social dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review experimental evidence on factors influencing adherence to majority opinion.
• To identify conditions under which majority influence is strong or weak.

Main Methods:

• Review of experimental literature on majority influence.
• Analysis of factors including majority size, competence, benevolence, belief alignment, and opinion independence.

Main Results:

• Adherence to majority opinion is influenced by majority size, competence, benevolence, belief alignment, and independence.
• Belief alignment is consistently followed, though individuals may overweight their own opinion.
• Evidence for the influence of majority size and independence is mixed.
• Competence and benevolence appear to be adequately considered.

Conclusions:

• An evolutionary framework can explain mixed findings by differentiating between evolutionarily valid and non-evolutionarily valid cues.
• Evolutionarily valid cues are readily incorporated, while non-evolutionarily valid cues may be ignored by default.