How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect
Lorenz and colleagues tested whether social influence weakens the wisdom of crowds, the idea that the average of many estimates can beat individual experts. Participants answered factual estimation questions over several rounds, some seeing the average or the full set of others' answers and a control group seeing nothing. Groups began out accurate, but exposure to others' estimates narrowed the spread of opinion enough to erode the crowd effect. The authors name three mechanisms: influence reduced diversity without improving accuracy, the true value drifted toward the edge of the range of estimates, and confidence rose after convergence even though accuracy did not.
Lorenz and colleagues tested whether social influence weakens the wisdom of crowds, the idea that the average of many estimates can beat individual experts. Participants answered factual estimation questions over several rounds, some seeing the average or the full set of others' answers and a control group seeing nothing. Groups began out accurate, but exposure to others' estimates narrowed the spread of opinion enough to erode the crowd effect. The authors name three mechanisms: influence reduced diversity without improving accuracy, the true value drifted toward the edge of the range of estimates, and confidence rose after convergence even though accuracy did not.
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Lorenz, J., Rauhut, H., Schweitzer, F., & Helbing, D. (2011). How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect. PNAS, 108(22), 9020-9025. doi:10.1073/pnas.1008636108