Uninformed individuals promote democratic consensus in animal groups
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Recent studies on animal groups have shown that the presence of uninformed individuals in fish schools acts in favor of the numerical majority, at the expense of very opinionated individuals.
“By contrast, recent studies on animal groups have shown that the presence of uninformed individuals in fish schools acts in favor of the numerical majority, at the expense of very opinionated individuals [1].”
From Social Influence and the Collective Dynamics of Opinion Formation (2013) · cites this paper as [1]
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- Authors
- Couzin, I. D., Ioannou, C. C., Demirel, G., Gross, T., Torney, C. J., Hartnett, A., Conradt, L., Levin, S. A., & Leonard, N. E.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (DE)
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Couzin, Iain D.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2011-12-16
- Volume
- 334
- Issue
- 6062
- Pages
- 1578-1580
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2095395460
- Cited by
- 451
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 40 · 2013: 41 · 2012: 21
- FWCI
- 25.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- nbn-resolving.de
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (publishedVersion)
- KOPS (University of Konstanz) (submittedVersion)
- ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0848755)
- Searle Scholars Program
- Royal Society
- Office of the Dean for Research, Princeton University
- Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Office of Naval Research (N00014)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- group decision making, democratic consensus, minority influence, group conflict, information constraints, majority rule
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cyprinidae, Democracy, Models, Biological, Knowledge, Models, Animal, Consensus
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