Want to shift a group’s opinion? Encourage opponents to sit on the fence
Neutrality can speed up and stabilise collective decisions, new UK study shows.
University of Bath
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In voting games with human participants, groups shifted their overall decision more quickly and cleanly than when the option of abstention was removed when abstention was allowed.
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Trying to persuade people to abandon deeply held views often backfires, leaving groups entrenched and unable to move forward. A new study by researchers at the University of Bath in the UK proposes a strategy that is both surprising and more effective: encourage neutrality.
The researchers, led by Professor Kit Yates from the Department of Mathematics, found that when individuals are encouraged to step back and adopt a neutral position – for example by abstaining in a vote – groups become more responsive, decisions become easier to reach, and shifts in consensus happen more smoothly.
Neutrality does not stall progress – it creates valuable breathing space in which people can reassess their stance, making it easier for a consensus to form or for a group to change its mind when circumstances evolve.
Professor Yates said: “Allowing people to take a neutral stance creates breathing space for reassessment, making it easier for a consensus to form or for a group to change its mind.
“By recognising neutrality as a feature – not a bug – of group decisions, our study resolves a long-standing trade-off: you don’t need elaborate, many person dynamics or sophisticated social structures for consensus and flexibility to emerge.
“Instead, once neutrality is allowed as an option, very simple interactions between pairs of individuals, where A influences B or B influences A, are enough to produce the observed group level behaviour.”
In the new study – published today in Advanced Science – the researchers developed a simple mathematical model to explore how groups make decisions. Their model shows that groups can reach agreement in two ways.
One is the familiar route of persuading undecided individuals to join one side. The other, which has received much less attention, is a ‘de-escalation’ route, in which disagreement pushes people into a neutral state before they later choose a side independently.
The team found this de-escalation route to be particularly effective, allowing groups to change direction more quickly. This occurs because the number of active decision-makers becomes smaller when more individuals become neutral, giving chance a greater influence and allowing a new consensus to form faster.
Neutrality is an option for both animals and humans
The researchers tested their finding in two real systems: locusts and humans.
In marching locusts, they found clear evidence that whenever a swarm switches direction – from one direction to another – it first enters a brief phase where many locusts stop moving, effectively becoming neutral.
With most of the group paused, only a small minority remains on the move. Those few individuals have a much stronger influence on what happens next. This temporary shrinking of the active group magnifies small fluctuations, allowing a new collective direction to take hold quickly.
Next, the team ran voting games with human participants and found that when abstention was allowed, groups shifted their overall decision more quickly and cleanly than when the option of abstention was removed.
The researchers envisage their behavioural insight scaling from animal groups and voting games to boardrooms and online communities. The findings suggest practical strategies for adaptive decision making: if you want to overturn an entrenched consensus, it can be more effective to cool down strong opponents so they adopt a neutral stance, rather than targeting only the stereotypical ‘floating voter’.
“It might be annoying when someone is on the fence about an important topic that you feel passionately about, but in fact this can be a useful strategy to help groups make better decisions in the long run,” said co-author Professor Tim Rogers.
“Our model and experiments suggest a de escalation tactic speeds up responsive consensus change.”
The team carrying out the study were University of Bath academics Professors Kit Yates and Tim Rogers from the Department of Mathematics, Dr Janina Hoffmann from the Department of Psychology and Dr Andrei Sontag, (now at University College London).
Journal
Advanced Science
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Consensus Formation and Change are Enhanced by Neutrality
Article Publication Date
23-Mar-2026
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