Centrality in sociocognitive networks and social influence: An illustration in a group decision-making context.

Abstract

Social influence in consensus formation was examined using a notion of sociocognitive network.Given the robustness of shared information in determining group decisions, the authors propose the concept of a sociocognitive network that captures the degree of members' know ledge-sharing prior to group interaction. A link connecting a given pair of members represents the amount of information that the pair shares before interaction. As in a regular social network, a member's status can be defined by the centrality in the network; the more information a member shares with others, the more cognitively central the member is in the group. The authors hypothesized that a cognitively central member would acquire pivotal power in a group and exert more influence on consensus than would peripheral members, independently of the member's preference majority or minority status. The results of two studies supported these predictions. 296This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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