Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter

group members tend to become far more confident of their judgments after they speak with one another (1) – 27 1
A major effect of group interactions is a greater sense that the postdeliberation conclusion is correct—whether it actually is or not. One reason is that corroboration by others increases people’s confidence in their judgments (2) – 27 1
they often ignore their own beliefs and say that they believe what other people believe… people also tend to go along with the crowd if the answer is false, even if they have independent reason to believe that it is false. The authors conclude that people’s answers come close to supporting the hypothesis that “people always follow the collective credibility rating, even when they are sure that the statement is true or false (3) – 29 1
majority pressures can be powerful even for factual questions to which some people know the right answers.5 The study involved twelve hundred people, forming groups of six, five, and four members. Individuals were asked true-false questions involving art, poetry, public opinion, geography, economics, and politics. They were then asked to assemble into groups that discussed the questions and produced answers. The views of the majority played a dominant role in determining each group’s answers; people tended to go along with what most people thought. The truth played a role, too, but a lesser one. If a majority of individuals in the group gave the right answer, the group’s decision moved toward the majority in 79 percent of the cases. If a majority of individuals in the group gave the wrong answer, the group’s decision nonetheless moved toward the majority in 56 percent of the cases (4) – 29 1
Groups show more unrealistic overconfidence than do individual group members (5)… They are even more vulnerable to framing effects than are individuals (6) – 52-53 2
While the worst songs (as established by the control group) never ended up at the very top and the best songs never ended up at the very bottom, essentially anything else could happen. If a song benefited from a burst of early downloads, it could do really well (7) – 58-59 3
One of the most insidious side effects of group decision making is that people believe in wrong group decisions more than they believe in incorrect individual decisions. The social proof resulting from cascades and (conformity more generally) amplifies everyone’s trust in the incorrect outcome (8) 69 3
inputs into the decision process from highly confident or dominant personalities have more impact and increase the esteem accorded to those individuals, regardless of the quality of their contributions (9) – 69 3
In the experiment, cascades often did develop—and they usually produced errors. After a number of individual judgments were revealed, people announced decisions that were not indicated by their private draws but that fit with the majority of previous announcements (10) – 69 3
There is evidence that people eventually tend to break very long cascade chains, but there is no doubt that even short chains can create big trouble, and some long ones do persist (11) – 69 3
When a particular event is salient, it can lead to availability cascades, by which related ideas spread rapidly from one person to another, eventually producing a widespread belief within a group, whether large or small (12) – 73 3
If a movie (Star Wars?), a television show (Breaking Bad?), or a book (Harry Potter?) does well, businesses will react strongly, eagerly looking for a proposal or a project that seems similar. And indeed, cascades are highly visible in the television industry in sudden bursts of shows about teenaged vampires or privileged housewives, as managers make decisions that reflect recent successes (13) – 74 3
When group members are initially disposed toward risk taking, a risky shift is likely. Where members are initially disposed toward caution, a cautious shift is likely (14) 79-80 4
Juries display group polarization as well. In particular, their punitive-damage awards tend to be far higher than the preferred award of the median member, before deliberation. The result of jury deliberation is to produce an increase in extremism, in the particular form of higher awards (15) – 81 4
It is partly for this reason, then, like-minded people, having deliberated with one another, become surer that they are right and thus more extreme. In many contexts, people’s opinions turn extreme simply because their views have been corroborated and because they become more confident after learning that others share their views (16) – 84-85 4
A great deal of work suggests that group polarization is more likely and is heightened when people have a sense of shared identity and belong to a tight-knit group or club (17) – 85 4
Among those who viewed Palin favorably but had limited political knowledge, the correction turned out to succeed in changing beliefs. The correction also succeeded among those who viewed Palin unfavorably. But the correction actually backfired among Palin supporters with a high degree of political knowledge. After receiving the correction, they became more likely to believe that the Affordable Care Act contained death panels. Ironically, the correction intensified their original belief. The study suggests that if members of an out-group support some proposition, their very support might entrench the preexisting beliefs of the in-group – (18) 86 4
groups will not perform well if they emphasize broadly shared information while neglecting information that is held by one or a few members. Unfortunately, countless studies demonstrate that this regrettable result is highly likely… Nor does discussion increase the recall of unshared information. On the contrary, its major effect is to increase people’s recall of the attributes of the initially most popular candidate or position (19) – 89,108 5
information held by all group members has more influence on group judgments than information held by only a few members (20) – 90 5
Résumés for three candidates applying for a position of marketing manager were placed before group members. The experimenters rigged the attributes of the candidates so that one applicant was clearly the best for the job described. Group members would learn who was best if they were able to see, and to consider, all available information. (The experimenters verified this by forming some control groups in which all subjects were given full information. These groups invariably chose the best candidate.) The subjects were given information packets, each containing a subset of information from the résumés, so that each group member had only part of the relevant information. The groups consisted of three people, some operating face-to-face, some operating online. Almost none of the deliberating groups made what was conspicuously the right choice! The reason is simple: people failed to share their information in a way that would permit the group to make that choice. Members tended to share positive information about the winning candidate and negative information about the losers. They suppressed negative information about the winner and positive information about the losers. Hence, their statements served to “reinforce the march toward group consensus rather than add complications and fuel debate (21) – 90 5
consider a simulation of political elections, in which information was parceled out to individual members about three candidates for political office. In this simulation, properly pooled information could have led to what was clearly the best choice, candidate A.5 In the first condition, each member of the four-person groups was given most of the relevant information (66 percent of the information about each candidate). In that condition, 67 percent of group members favored candidate A before discussion, and 85 percent did so after discussion.6 This is a clear example of sensible aggregation of information. Groups significantly outperformed individuals, apparently because of the exchange of information and reasons. Here, then, is a clear illustration of the possibility that groups can aggregate what members know in a way that produces sensible outcomes. In the second condition, by contrast, the information that favored candidate A was parceled out to various members of the group so that only 33 percent of the information about each candidate was shared. Furthermore, as the condition was designed, the shared information favored two unambiguously inferior candidates, B and C. In that condition, fewer than 25 percent of group members favored candidate A before discussion—a natural and rational product of the initial distribution of information. But if the unshared information were to emerge through group discussion and were to be taken seriously, the group would end up selecting candidate A. The bad news is that the number of people favoring candidate A actually fell after discussion, simply because the shared information had disproportionate influence on group members… In that study, no experimenter controlled the information that the executives had about the various candidates. Instead, the executives’ knowledge arose naturally from their own information searches. As a result of those searches, some information was known to all, some was shared by some but not by all, and some was held by only one person. The result? Even among high-level executives, common information had a disproportionately large impact on discussions and conclusions. The executives gave disproportionately little weight to valuable information held by one person or a few. As a result, the executives made bad decisions, because they did not use the information that their colleagues had. (22) – 91,94 5
Some group members are cognitively central, in the sense that their personal knowledge is also held by many other group members.17 What the cognitively central members know, other people know as well. A cognitively central group member is thus defined as one who possesses information in common with all or most group members. By contrast, other group members are cognitively peripheral; their own information is uniquely held. What they know is known by no one else, and what they may know might be really important. For that very reason, well-functioning groups need to take advantage of cognitively peripheral people. These people are especially significant. But in most groups, cognitively central people have a disproportionate influence in discussion and participate more in group deliberations. By contrast, cognitively peripheral people end up having little influence and participate less, often to the group’s detriment (23) 94 5
In a study designed to test judgments about candidates for office, involving both three-person and six-person groups, all the group discussions focused far more on shared information than on unshared information—but the effect was significantly greater for six-person groups. Most remarkably, the researchers reported, “it was almost as likely for a shared item to be mentioned twice as it was for an unshared item to be mentioned at all (24) – 95 5
To understand the additional element, consider the finding that low-status members of groups are “increasingly reluctant over the course of discussion to repeat unique information.”20 Those in the group who are inexperienced or are thought to be low in the hierarchy are particularly loath to emphasize their privately held information as discussion proceeds. In a business, then, leaders are unlikely to receive the views of those who do not have much experience or respect, even if these less powerful people know something important (25) – 97 5
after a group member discusses shared information, other group members end up thinking that he or she is more competent and likable. Maybe that finding is not so surprising. It may be built into human nature to respect and like people more once they have told you something that you already know. (“If they tell me that, they must be smart, and nice too!”) But perhaps more surprisingly, and certainly more tellingly, a person who is provided with information that she already has ends up feeling more competent and likable in her own eyes as well.22 Strange but true (and important): if someone tells you something you already know, you will probably like not only that person, but also yourself, a bit better as a result. (“If they tell me that, I must be smart, and nice too!”) (26) – 98 5
Cascades are far less likely when each individual knows that he has nothing to gain from a correct individual decision and everything to gain from a correct group decision. (27) – 110 6
each member of a threeperson group was given a good deal of independent information about one of three murder suspects.16 In half of these groups, the specific “expertise” of each member was publicly identified to everyone before discussion began. In the other half, there was no such public identification of the specialists. The bias in favor of shared information was much reduced in the groups with the publicly identified experts; the public identification operated as an effective device to solve the information-sharing problem. By contrast, the reduction of the bias was a lot smaller when experts were not identified publicly and when each group member was only privately told, by the experimenter, that he or she was an expert on a particular candidate. (28) – 111 6
there is some evidence for the view that devil’s advocates can be helpful.20 Many experiments do find that genuine dissenting views can enhance group performance… when an advocate’s challenges to a group consensus are insincere, group members discount the arguments accordingly (29) – 117 6
people were asked to make private estimates initially. After a period of discussion, people were then asked to make final estimates. These were the most successful groups. A simple approach of estimate-talk-estimate radically reduced errors. (30) – 122 6
great football quarterback has a mental library of visual images that instantly identify configurations of defenders to support that uncanny ability to read the defense and select targets for pass reception. Champion tennis players have the same kind of mental library. A similar snapshot-matching process underlies the diagnostic skills of experienced dermatologists and radiologists (31) – 160 9
the more participants, the lower the competitors’ effort. This was true at every level of performance. Even the top fifth of competitors, who had a realistic shot at winning, slowed down on the coding task if there were many competitors (32) – 173 10
Consider the Hollywood Stock Exchange, in which people predict (among many other things) Oscar nominees and winners as well as opening-weekend box-office figures. The level of accuracy has been impressive, especially considering the fact that the traders use virtual rather than real money… Many people believe that you can’t predict the weather, but the National Weather Service does quite well, and orange juice futures do even better (33) – 187 11?
The experimenters selected people who worked in different parts of HP’s business operation. Because of its small size, the market was a very thin one, meaning that there were few participants and hence the market was far less liquid than ideal. Participants were chosen with the belief that each person could contribute information from his or her department. The markets were organized so that securities existed for intervals of sales. For example, one security would pay off if sales were between one and ten printers; another would pay off if sales were between ten and twenty. In most of the experiments, the possible range of sales was divided into ten intervals of equal size. On the basis of the prices of each security, the experimenters could guess how many units HP would sell that month. Prediction markets were expected to have large advantages over internal projections that involve deliberation. Employees involved in sales have an incentive to understate projected outcomes, so as to ensure that the projections do not fall short of expectations; this bias, or a competing bias in favor of excessive optimism, can be reduced through market incentives. The results showed that the markets’ predictions were a real improvement over HP’s official forecasts. In no fewer than six of the eight markets for which official forecasts were available, the market prediction was significantly closer to the actual outcome than the official forecast (34) – 188 11
the University of Iowa has run the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), which allow people to bet on the outcome of presidential elections. Before the 2004 elections, the IEM did far better than professional polling organizations, outperforming polls 451 out of 596 times (35) – 189 11
With respect to various measures of cognitive ability, there is a consistent finding across studies of many different small groups: groups with a higher average IQ tend to perform better (36) – 202 12
the average of the members’ scores on a test of social perception (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) predicted performance: the higher the average, the higher the group’s performance. This test was originally invented by the psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (brother of the actor and comic Sacha Baron-Cohen) to diagnose autism in children.10 The person taking the test is shown a series of photos of just the eyes of another person and asked to judge what emotion the person in the photo is experiencing (e.g., playful, irritated, bored). The second measure, unevenness of participation, or the tendency of a few members to dominate a discussion, was negatively related to group performance (37) – 208 12

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