group cognition 2 - wisdom of crowds, social reasoning, and collective intelligence Flashcards
conditions for wisdom of crowds (2)
works when there is:
uncorrelated errors
no systematic bias
when averaging works (3)
uncorrelated errors = independent estimates
no systematic bias
no coordination between group members
uncorrelated errors
true value is in the middle of all individuals estimations - true value is around the mean
participants sample the true value with noise (spread high and low of actual answer)
correlated errors
most estimates go one way e.g. all higher than true value
there is noise (spread of scores) AND bias
so if a mean is taken it’ll be wrong/further from true value
cause of correlated errors (3)
- limited info
- shared (individual) biases
- group conformity
these reduce the wisdom of crowds effect
2 things that can effect group cognition
groupthink
diversity
polarisation in group decision making
attitudes expressed in the group move away from average of individuals opinions
moves towards more extreme position
groupthink
highly cohesive groups = premature consensus seeking
leads to poor decision making and polarisation in group decision making
due to:
- overconfidence
- blindness to errors
- conformity
example of groupthink - space shuttle challenger
challenger shuttle was very delayed and then launched January 1986 in freezing conditions - then crashed
some engineers were concerned about the seals in the cold
issues with NASAs organisational culture and decision making processes were key to the accident
criticisms of groupthink (4)
- not a distinct phenomenon
- doesn’t add anything to group reasoning literature - thwarted understanding of group reasoning
- does not happen –> lacks empirical evidence for all constructs associated with groupthink
- focus on negative outcomes of group decisions, restricts understanding of group decision making process
BUT is useful for focusing attention on flaws of group decision making
groupthink and the bay of pigs
JFK and Castro
failed invasion on cuba
not well thought through, therefore failed
JFK afterwards said “ how could we have been so stupid”
origin of idea of groupthink
diversity as an antidote to bias - wisdom of crowds in the real world
more diverse editing teams = higher quality wikipedia articles
spend longer in more complex discussion
social accounts of reason - interactionist account
reason evolved to produce and evaluate arguments, not for individuals to solve problems (individualist account)
Wason’s task in small groups - individual vs group result
individually = 80% fail
- bias against getting the right answer
- simple aggregation should compound this effect
result = 80% group succeed
conversion from majority failure to majority success - “truth wins”
why are groups better than individuals in Wason’s task
argumentative theory of reasoning
transcripts of task shows an exchange of arguments
confirmation bias is an individual failing, but is a collective strength
argumentative theory of reasoning
groups reason through:
exchange of arguments
- groups typically co-constructed a structure of arguments qualitatively more sophisticated than that generated by most individuals
arguments change people’s problem representation
define collective intelligence
the ability of a group to perform a wide variety of tasks
collective intelligence and general intelligence
collective intelligence (c) = the ability of a group to perform a wide variety of tasks
general intelligence (g) = performance of an individual across variety of tasks, common statistical factor of g
people who do well on one task tend to do well on most others, despite variations in tasks
studied initially to see if g of group members predicts c
is collective intelligence (c) correlated with the average (g) of a group
c is only moderately related to the average or maximum individual intelligence of group members
takes more than a group of smart individuals to make a smart group
what is collective intelligence (c) correlated with (4)
- average social sensitivity of group members
- the equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking
- the proportion of females in the group
diversity within the group (can hinder or help depending on the task - cognitive diversity (e.g., thinking styles)
Creative innovative tasks= diversity assists; efficacy important= diversity not helpful
group cognition study - different tasks in groups - 4 tasks
68 groups completed task online OR face to face
a social task:
- Baron-Cohen eyes study (2001)
a “choosing” intelligence task:
- e.g. soduku, done either online (communication in group via text) or face-to-face
a Raven’s advanced progressive matrices test:
- which pattern fits next in a sequence
- starts easy and gets harder
a generating task:
- another intelligence task
- given an object and have to come up with examples of what you could make with it e.g. brick = house, tower, wall etc.
results of the four group cognition tasks - 2 main results
found one dominant collective intelligence factor - not multiple
social intelligence - online and offline average score predicted average collective intelligence - correlation
–> social sensitivity is important to group functioning
is communication or knowledge/intelligence more important in group decision making
both can be equally as important in collective intelligence of a group
predictors of group intelligence (3)
- average social sensitivity
- amount of communication
- distribution of communication
strongly suggests coordination problem of group work often overweighs the intellectual challenges
