Influentials, Networks, and Public Opinion Formation

A central idea in marketing and diffusion research is that influentials—a minority of individuals who influence an exceptional number of their peers—are important to the formation of public opinion. Here we examine this idea, which we call the “influentials hypothesis, ” using a series of computer simulations of interpersonal influence processes. Under most conditions that we consider, we find that large cascades of influence are driven not by influentials but by a critical mass of easily influenced individuals. Although our results do not exclude the possibility that influentials can be important, they suggest that the influentials hypothesis requires more careful specification and testing than it has received. In the 1940s and 1950s, Paul Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz, and colleagues (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1968) formulated a breakthrough theory of public opinion formation that sought to reconcile the role of media influence with the growing realization that, in a variety of decision-making scenarios, ranging from political