Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Communication in groups allows social learners to influence one another and change their beliefs over time. Though some of the same heuristics that guide learners’ trust in individual informants can be applied to groups, variation in how individual beliefs are aggregated into a collective judgement can radically alter the accuracy of collective judgement. How do observers evaluate collective judgements? We present two experiments testing the impact of affective signals on observer trust. In each experiment, one faction “converts” group members from an opposing faction, or is converted by them. When the focal faction is surprised at the opposing view, observer trust in the focal faction’s belief rises or falls as consensus increases or decreases. When the focal faction is angry, observer trust falls when consensus decreases, but does not rise even when the “consensus” approaches unanimity. Affective signals in group interactions may help naive learners evaluate collective accuracy.