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In this paper, we analyze the influence of social status on opinion dynamics and consensus building in collab-oration networks. To that end, we simulate the diffusion ofopinions in empirical collaboration networks by taking into account both the network structure and the individual differences of people reflected through their social status. For our simulations, we adapt a well-known Naming Game model and extend it with Probabilistic Meeting Rule to account for the social status of individuals participating in a meeting. This mechanism is sufficiently flexible and allows us to model various situations in collaboration networks such as the emergence or disappearance of social classes. In this work, we concentrate on studying three well-known forms of class society: egalitarian, ranked and stratified society. In particular, we are interested in the way how these society forms facilitate opinion diffusion. Our experimental findings reveal that (i) opinion dynamics in collaboration networks is indeed affected by the individual social status and (ii) that this impact is intricate and non-obvious. Inparticular, although the social status favors consensus building, relying too strongly upon the social status can slow down the opinion diffusion. This result indicates that there is a specific setting for each collaboration network in which social status optimally benefits the consensus building process.
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