The allure of consensus: People (over)seek consensus in selecting group persuasion strategies.

How do people select targets when tasked with persuading a group of people? One approach would be to prioritize getting people in support of the persuader's position to hold relatively extreme attitudes-an An alternative approach would be to prioritize getting as many people as possible to support the persuader's position, regardless of how extreme they are-a . Although some situations might allow persuaders to combine these strategies, the present work examines how people select targets and strategies when a natural trade-off exists between acquiring fewer people with more extreme attitudes versus more people with less extreme attitudes. Prior work suggests that potential advantages exist for both extremity and consensus strategies.