SPATIAL CLUSTERING IN THE CONFORMITY GAME - DYNAMIC SOCIAL IMPACT IN ELECTRONIC GROUPS

Motivated by bonuses for agreeing with the majority of their 24-person group, 192 participants in a study of electronic communication sent a nd received messages from their neighbors in each of 4 spatial configu rations over 4 rounds of asynchronous communication. Analyses of the 4 8 resulting cases showed that over time opinions reorganized themselve s so that most people thought they were in the majority, even though s ubstantial numbers of them were not. This spatial clustering was preva lent in all 3 spatial geometries, in contrast to a nonspatial control geometry, whereas consolidation (reduced diversity) was affected by th e dumpiness and dimensionality of social space. The results confirm ro bust derivations of, and thus provide empirical support for, dynamic s ocial impact theory.