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' knowledge-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.