I just posted the following blog entry, but also attach my summary of the article (which itself is only ~3 pages).
[[ http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/social/wikipedia/collective-intelligence-and-women 2011 Mar 18 | Collective Intelligence and Women A paper that I was happy to read while working on my draft of "Free As in Sexist?" was the recent Science article "Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups". The researchers found evidence of a "collective intelligence" factor on group tasks that was less related to the highest intelligence member, or the group's average intelligence, than to average social sensitivity, conversational turn-taking, and the proportion of females in the group! They conclude "it would seem to be much easier to raise the intelligence of a group than an individual. Could a group's collective intelligence be increased by, for example, better electronic collaboration tools?" I wonder if those using electronic collaboration tools have their collective intelligence increased via greater female participation?! this entry posted to social/wikipedia; ]]Title: Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmi, Thomas W. Malone
Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmi, Thomas W. Malone
- ~ Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups
j=Science m=October 29 pp=686-688 v=330 y=2010 r=20110318
The authors propose a "collective intelligence" *c* (akin to general intelligence *g*) for groups based on a collection of tasks "from all quadrants of the McGrath Task Circumplex, a well established taxonomy of group tasks based on the coordination processes they require" (e.g., visual puzzles, brainstorming, collective moral judgments, negotiating over limited resources). They conducted two experimental studies (with 699 people total) in which participants work in groups of 2-5 members. The authors found collective intelligence as a factor that accounts for 30-50% of variance between groups. Interestingly, in the first study (40 3-person groups) average and maximum intelligence scores of individual group members does not correlate with *c*. When combining the findings of the two studies, there's a moderate correlation between *c* and average/highest-scoring intelligence, but "c was still a much better predictor of group performance on the criterion tasks then the average or maximum individual intelligence." In turn, three factors were significantly correlated with *c*: average social sensitivity, conversational turn-taking, and the proportion of females in the group (these are likely related).
688 Or importantly, it would seem to be much easier to raise the intelligence of a group than an individual. Could a group's collective intelligence be increased by, for example, better electronic collaboration tools?
-- Or could those using electronic collaboration tools, have their collective intelligence increased by greater female participation?!
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