Experts in the crowd and their influence on herding in reward-based crowdfunding of cultural projects

The present research investigates certification effects and rational herding in reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF) campaigns of cultural projects. Culture is a domain where expert opinion traditionally plays an important role. Consequently, to test the role of experts in collective behaviour and outcomes of crowdfunding campaigns, RBCF of cultural projects is a particularly relevant field. The authors analyse data obtained from France’s leading RBCF platform, Ulule, and show that the contributing crowd is heterogeneous, both in terms of expertise and willingness to follow information cascades. Testing the impact of different backer categories on (1) campaign success, (2) composition of the crowd and (3) overall day-by-day funding dynamics, the study provides evidence of the existence of both a certification effect at the very beginning of a funding campaign, and dynamic herding later all along the campaign. Contributions from expert backers, whether specialized in the same creative industry as a given project or not, trigger additional contributions and improve the success probability of a funding campaign. Senior experts follow other senior experts, which supports normative social influence and, when specialized, they follow other specialized senior experts, which highlights taste-based homophily. We also show that junior experts, i.e. future serial backers, follow senior experts, particularly when specialized, which supports informational social influence. Experts hence lead the crowd in their decision to contribute to cultural projects, and those who follow them are mostly senior experts themselves and apprentice experts, not one-time contributors, which suggests the existence of community logic and rational information cascades in RBCF.

Ideology, Education, and Couple’s Voting Preferences in the 2016 Presidential Election

One nationally representative study tested whether ideology predicted likelihood of people voting for a different candidate from their romantic partner in the 2016 United States presidential election. Extending upon recent research on informational social influence and ideological differences in values, results show that conservatives were more likely to vote for the same candidate as their partner than liberals were, but only for people with little education. This relationship reverses for people with high education such that conservatives were more likely than liberals to vote for a different candidate from their romantic partner. I discuss theoretical implications of these findings when considering the conflict between people’s political views and their loyalty to close relationship partners.