Partisan & contrapartisan prestigious individuals' effect on belief change

Abstract

Prestigious members are highly influential to group actions and decision-making. Here we explore how individuals' beliefs are affected by the beliefs of prestigious members of the same partisan, or the opposite (contra)partisan group.

We introduce a simple game, in which players disclose their private beliefs about a series of real-world topics using a slider scale (e.g., Are GMO crops a good idea?). Participants then observe how an artificial prestigious (or non-prestigious) agent from the same (or opposite) political party distributes coin "bets" on one of the real-world topics that the the player previously shared their private belief about. For example, the other agent might bet 90 coins that GMO crops are a good idea, and 10 coins that they are bad. After observing their behavior, the player can then provide their own coin allocation on the issue. We will then evaluate how the players' beliefs change accordingly. Do participants' beliefs converge toward the prestigious individual of both their own party and the opposite party? Or do they converge toward the individual of the same party and diverge from the opposite party?

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