Earlier social information has a stronger influence on judgments

Abstract

People’s decisions are often informed by the choices of others. Evidence accumulation models provide a mechanistic account of how such social information enters the choice process. Previous research taking this approach has suggested two fundamentally different cognitive mechanisms by which people incorporate social information. On the one hand, individuals may update their evidence level instantaneously when observing social information. On the other hand, they may gradually integrate social information over time. These accounts make different predictions on how the timing of social information impacts its influence. The former predicts that timing has no impact on social information uptake. The latter predicts that social information which arrives earlier has a stronger impact because its impact increases over time. We tested both predictions in two studies in which participants first observed a perceptual stimulus. They then entered a deliberation phase in which social information arrived either early or late before reporting their judgment. In Experiment 1, early social information remained visible until the end and was thus displayed for longer than late social information. In Experiment 2, which was preregistered, early and late social information were displayed for an equal duration. In both studies, early social information had a larger impact on individuals’ judgments. Further, an evidence accumulation analysis found that social information integration was best explained by both an immediate update of evidence and continuous integration over time. Because in social systems, timing plays a key role (e.g., propagation of information in social networks), our findings inform theories explaining the temporal evolution of social impact and the emergent social dynamics.