Abstract
Studied the performance of 744 Ss playing the conformity game (B. Latané and T. L'Herrou, 1996), which awards individuals communicating via e-mail for correctly predicting choices of the majority of their group on a variety of uninvolving issues (e.g., "Choose a color: red or blue."). Ss were organized into 36 groups of 24 people each, and discussed between 4 and 10 conformity game topics during 5 twice-weekly e-mail sessions. Rewarded for being in the majority, Ss' choices resulted in the emergence of 4 forms of group-level self organization (clustering, correlation, consolidation, and continuing diversity) predicted by dynamic social impact (DSI) theory. Group members became more similar to their neighbors in electronic space, opinions on originally unrelated topics became correlated, and majority factions increased in size, but minorities, protected by the emergence of coherent subgroups, did not completely disappear. The authors discuss the nature of social space in computer networks and draw applications of DSI theory for computer-mediated communication in a democratic society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)