Social Constraint and Self‐Doubt: Mechanisms of Social Network influence on Resistance to Persuasion

Those around us have a profound influence on our political attitudes and attitude strength, such that people whose social networks include a variety of perspectives have weaker, less deeply entrenched attitudes than those who are surrounded by like‐minded others. In particular, those embedded in attitudinally heterogeneous networks are more open to changing their views. The nature and mechanisms of this network influence on openness to attitude change remain unclear. A survey experiment examines two mechanisms proposed by prior literature: (1) social doubt triggered by network members' dissent and (2) social constraint to maintain similar attitudes. It also provides some data on the more commonly assumed mechanism, (3) information exchange. Results strongly support social constraint and are mixed on social doubt. This contrasts with the theoretical emphasis of much previous interdisciplinary social network research, which has focused primarily on information exchange, to the detriment of other mechanisms. Findings also indicate that like‐minded social network members solidify attitudes at least as much as dissent erodes them, suggesting that prior emphasis on the influence of heterogeneous rather than attitudinally congruent networks is overstated. Implications for political movements are discussed.