6 ms·

MIT Unravels the Secrets Behind Collective Intelligence

95 points by hinto_ize 15y ago

lawlit 15y ago
The study was done in only one perspective, wich is adding women to a group of men. In other words, men perform better in the presence of women. Next should be trying to add women to more women, or maybe adding men to a group of women, in order to have a bigger picture about how the collective intelligence works when mixing genders.
- joe_the_user 15y ago
  Did you read the article? They studied a number of things and "... when they controlled for the number of women in a group, it was shown that it was the emotional sensitivity scores which won out." Whatever its merits or flaws, the study was not simply about adding women to groups of men.
  - lawlit 15y ago
    1) I read the article 2) Did they try adding women to a women only group ? 3) Did they try adding men to a women only group ? 4) Did they try adding more women to a mixed group ? 5) Did they try adding more men to a mixed group ? 6) Did they try to remove all men from a group and replace them by women ? 6) Does this have to do with women being in a group, or does this just have to do with the group having elements from both genders collaborating ? The conclusions made in the article ,to me, seems more buzz-seeking than enriching.
    - ryusage 15y ago
      I think you're severely misunderstanding what it is they did in this experiment. The overall emphasis was not at all on the gender of the participants. As the article took pains to point out, they formed the groups based on a variety of intelligence scores - not gender. Initially, they discovered that the most significant factors were "the high average social sensitivity of group members, a high rate of sharing who gets to communicate, and more females". Then they controlled for the number of females in each group, and discovered that the number of females actually didn't matter so much - the women in the study were just more likely (than the men) to have high social sensitivity, so a team with many women would be more likely to do well. But a team consisting of all men would also do very well, as long as you made sure to pick men with high social sensitivity.
gwern 15y ago
This came up on LW before (http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/study_on_group_intelligence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/study_on_group_intelligence/); I pointed them (http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/link_study_on_group_intelligence/4neu http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/link_study_on_group_intelligence...) to a previous comment I had seen dissecting the study: http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-more-women/ar/3#comment-238026281 http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-tea... tl;dr: as one would expect, it's not that great and certainly doesn't justify the title.
Bud 15y ago
Did they try to control for Tea Party members or Christian fundamentalists? I'm not saying this just for snark value; if you don't believe in science or the scientific method, for instance, it would seem a bit hard for you to contribute much in the way of intelligence on such questions. Same thing with "social sensitivity"; I would guess that's not a strength among isolationists or fundamentalists of various types.
- learc83 15y ago
  Wow I'd really like to see some data to back up these assertions. Did they correct for poor welfare moms, blue collar union workers, or Muslims? To think that only Tea party members and Christian fundamentalists are the only ones who might not understand or have a problem with the scientific method is absurd. I really doubt your average 20 year old wearing a Che shirt cares any more about the scientific method than your average Tea Partier. What a ridiculous question.
  - VladRussian 15y ago
    >To think that only Tea party members and Christian fundamentalists are the only ones who might not understand or have a problem with the scientific method is absurd. I really doubt your average 20 year old wearing a Che shirt cares any more about the scientific method than your average Tea Partier. even a 20 years old wearing a Che shirt would see a connection [possibly after several trials] between stepping on a rake and a strange immediate sensation on the forehead and will cease to step on the rake thus manifesting basic grasp of the scientific method. Not so for a Tea Partier - he (or she) will every time think that it is God's will or somebody attacking them and their freedom to step on the rake and the Tea Partier will continue to step on the rake to assert their freedom and will also force others to do so.
    - learc83 15y ago
      I believe that political biases are blinding you to the even distribution of cognitive dissonance--no one political party has a monopoly. Conservative: "There's no way I'm going to trust those idiots in washington with my healthcare" "I do, however, trust those idiots in washington to fight endless wars, and keep the streets free of the evils of Marijuana" Liberal: "I don't trust those idiots in Washington. They lied to all of us, so that we would support an unjust war." "I do, however, trust those idiots in Washington to run our healthcare and education" People on both sides will continue to make decisions without using past experience to attempt to determine the outcome.
jcmhn 15y ago
These studies always leave out the negative side of social sensitivity: bullying and exclusion. In a task worked on for 5 hours everyone still has on their party manners.
bfe 15y ago
This dovetails to some degree with recent studies showing female asset managers both are less risk-tolerant and provide better overall returns than male asset managers, on average.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Do you have a citation for this? If true, it's counterintuitive - one would expect the risk-tolerant investors to have higher returns.
  - amirmc 15y ago
    I vaguely remember what the GP is talking about. IIRC it basically came down to women being more likely to 'let go' and not pour more good money after bad. I don't remember it being about 'risk-tolerance' specifically. More about women having less 'ego' in the game. Sorry I can't find the links.
  - gwern 15y ago
    The way I remember it, it was simply that men traded more and so the fees (combined with some bad choices) damaged their returns: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.145.8230&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.145...
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      This paper is based on retail investors at a discount brokerage, not asset managers.
      - gwern 15y ago
        Who we would expect to be immune to the issues of their gender... why? I bet if you look, there are similar results for managers, that those who trade more damage their returns.
        15y ago
hermannj314 15y ago
Recipe for success = just add women. Mad Men for the win. I knew replacing our secretaries with computers would destroy America. Your team doesn't need more developers, you need a Peggy Olson.

95 points by hinto_ize 15y ago

The study was done in only one perspective, wich is adding women to a group of men. In other words, men perform better in the presence of women. Next should be trying to add women to more women, or maybe adding men to a group of women, in order to have a bigger picture about how the collective intelligence works when mixing genders.

joe_the_user 15y ago
Did you read the article? They studied a number of things and "... when they controlled for the number of women in a group, it was shown that it was the emotional sensitivity scores which won out." Whatever its merits or flaws, the study was not simply about adding women to groups of men.
- lawlit 15y ago
  1) I read the article 2) Did they try adding women to a women only group ? 3) Did they try adding men to a women only group ? 4) Did they try adding more women to a mixed group ? 5) Did they try adding more men to a mixed group ? 6) Did they try to remove all men from a group and replace them by women ? 6) Does this have to do with women being in a group, or does this just have to do with the group having elements from both genders collaborating ? The conclusions made in the article ,to me, seems more buzz-seeking than enriching.
  - ryusage 15y ago
    I think you're severely misunderstanding what it is they did in this experiment. The overall emphasis was not at all on the gender of the participants. As the article took pains to point out, they formed the groups based on a variety of intelligence scores - not gender. Initially, they discovered that the most significant factors were "the high average social sensitivity of group members, a high rate of sharing who gets to communicate, and more females". Then they controlled for the number of females in each group, and discovered that the number of females actually didn't matter so much - the women in the study were just more likely (than the men) to have high social sensitivity, so a team with many women would be more likely to do well. But a team consisting of all men would also do very well, as long as you made sure to pick men with high social sensitivity.

gwern 15y ago

This came up on LW before (http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/study_on_group_intelligence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/study_on_group_intelligence/); I pointed them (http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/link_study_on_group_intelligence/4neu http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/link_study_on_group_intelligence...) to a previous comment I had seen dissecting the study: http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-more-women/ar/3#comment-238026281 http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-tea... tl;dr: as one would expect, it's not that great and certainly doesn't justify the title.

Bud 15y ago

Did they try to control for Tea Party members or Christian fundamentalists? I'm not saying this just for snark value; if you don't believe in science or the scientific method, for instance, it would seem a bit hard for you to contribute much in the way of intelligence on such questions. Same thing with "social sensitivity"; I would guess that's not a strength among isolationists or fundamentalists of various types.

learc83 15y ago
Wow I'd really like to see some data to back up these assertions. Did they correct for poor welfare moms, blue collar union workers, or Muslims? To think that only Tea party members and Christian fundamentalists are the only ones who might not understand or have a problem with the scientific method is absurd. I really doubt your average 20 year old wearing a Che shirt cares any more about the scientific method than your average Tea Partier. What a ridiculous question.
- VladRussian 15y ago
  >To think that only Tea party members and Christian fundamentalists are the only ones who might not understand or have a problem with the scientific method is absurd. I really doubt your average 20 year old wearing a Che shirt cares any more about the scientific method than your average Tea Partier. even a 20 years old wearing a Che shirt would see a connection [possibly after several trials] between stepping on a rake and a strange immediate sensation on the forehead and will cease to step on the rake thus manifesting basic grasp of the scientific method. Not so for a Tea Partier - he (or she) will every time think that it is God's will or somebody attacking them and their freedom to step on the rake and the Tea Partier will continue to step on the rake to assert their freedom and will also force others to do so.
  - learc83 15y ago
    I believe that political biases are blinding you to the even distribution of cognitive dissonance--no one political party has a monopoly. Conservative: "There's no way I'm going to trust those idiots in washington with my healthcare" "I do, however, trust those idiots in washington to fight endless wars, and keep the streets free of the evils of Marijuana" Liberal: "I don't trust those idiots in Washington. They lied to all of us, so that we would support an unjust war." "I do, however, trust those idiots in Washington to run our healthcare and education" People on both sides will continue to make decisions without using past experience to attempt to determine the outcome.

jcmhn 15y ago

These studies always leave out the negative side of social sensitivity: bullying and exclusion. In a task worked on for 5 hours everyone still has on their party manners.

bfe 15y ago

This dovetails to some degree with recent studies showing female asset managers both are less risk-tolerant and provide better overall returns than male asset managers, on average.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
Do you have a citation for this? If true, it's counterintuitive - one would expect the risk-tolerant investors to have higher returns.
- amirmc 15y ago
  I vaguely remember what the GP is talking about. IIRC it basically came down to women being more likely to 'let go' and not pour more good money after bad. I don't remember it being about 'risk-tolerance' specifically. More about women having less 'ego' in the game. Sorry I can't find the links.
- gwern 15y ago
  The way I remember it, it was simply that men traded more and so the fees (combined with some bad choices) damaged their returns: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.145.8230&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.145...
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    This paper is based on retail investors at a discount brokerage, not asset managers.
    - gwern 15y ago
      Who we would expect to be immune to the issues of their gender... why? I bet if you look, there are similar results for managers, that those who trade more damage their returns.
      - 15y ago

hermannj314 15y ago

Recipe for success = just add women. Mad Men for the win. I knew replacing our secretaries with computers would destroy America. Your team doesn't need more developers, you need a Peggy Olson.