Quantifying collective intelligence in human groups
Riedl and colleagues pooled performance data from 22 earlier studies of human groups to ask whether a general collective intelligence factor exists. They report support for a robust factor reflecting how well a group performs across varied tasks. The factor was predicted by the proportion of women in the group, with the effect mediated by members' average social perceptiveness. It also predicted performance on outside criterion tasks, and the group's collaboration process mattered more than the skill of its individual members.
Riedl and colleagues pooled performance data from 22 earlier studies of human groups to ask whether a general collective intelligence factor exists. They report support for a robust factor reflecting how well a group performs across varied tasks. The factor was predicted by the proportion of women in the group, with the effect mediated by members' average social perceptiveness. It also predicted performance on outside criterion tasks, and the group's collaboration process mattered more than the skill of its individual members.
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Riedl, C., Kim, Y. J., Gupta, P., Malone, T. W., & Woolley, A. W. (2021). Quantifying collective intelligence in human groups. PNAS, 118(21), e2005737118