This idea that we reason better in groups has received recent attention because of the Argumentative Theory. Thus,
People mostly have a problem with the confirmation bias when they reason on their own, when no one is there to argue against their point of view. What has been observed is that often times, when people reason on their own, they’re unable to arrive at a good solution, at a good belief, or to make a good decision because they will only confirm their initial intuition.
On the other hand, when people are able to discuss their ideas with other people who disagree with them, then the confirmation biases of the different participants will balance each other out, and the group will be able to focus on the best solution. Thus, reasoning works much better in groups. When people reason on their own, it’s very likely that they are going to go down a wrong path. But when they’re actually able to reason together, they are much more likely to reach a correct solution.
The thought, which surely has some appeal, is that human reasoning has features that defeat one’s getting to a correct solution. Confirmation bias is an example. That is, we generally sort out evidence to find what shows we’ve been right. Unfortunately, though, the idea that groups provide a solution may itself have a problem.
Recent work by Read Montague’s group suggests that in competitive groups, some people end up doing less well on cognitive tasks even when their IQ scores are the same as better functioning members.
Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics – such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties – can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. “You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. .
“We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ,” said Montague. “Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect.”
“Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning,” said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. “And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit.” …
There seem to have been at least two very different reactions on the part of the involved researchers. One response is this:
We don’t know how much these effects are present in real-world settings,” Kishida said. “But given the potentially harmful effects of social-status assignments and the correlation with specific neural signals, future research should be devoted to what, exactly, society is selecting for in competitive learning and workplace environments. By placing an emphasis on competition, for example, are we missing a large segment of the talent pool? Further brain imaging research may also offer avenues for developing strategies for people who are susceptible to these kinds of social pressures.”
It looks to me as though Kishida thinks the experiments show us that competitive grouping may cost us in that we may lose a significant portion of the talented population. But Quartz (see below) appears to be saying that who is in the talented population depends on who can perform well in the social situations. Of course, I’m going here just by how he was quoted by a journalist, so we might be tentative about conclusions.
“This study tells us the idea that IQ is something we can reliably measure in isolation without considering how it interacts with social context is essentially flawed,” said coauthor Steven Quartz, a professor of philosophy in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Caltech. “Furthermore, this suggests that the idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other.”
One remarkable aspect of the work is that it looks as though the number of women who are adversely affected is significantly higher than that of men.
In my experience, women often enough get the not so subtle look. It used to be as bad as “O, isn’t it cute that you are trying to have some confused thought.” Now it is for me more likely to be “What idiot thing does this old woman have to say?” Sometimes it can be quite explicit, as when a young man said after I delivered an invited talk, “I hope you don’t think your little point affects anything Block has to say.” It has always interested me that these sorts of things can affect my performance. Its as though one acts in accord with others expectations. And I think there is some evidence that that is right, but the current research addresses a specific kind of setting very common at least in our version of academia. The article indicated has a quite detailed picture of the mechanisms. And I’m wondering whether a xanax or two might be helpful. Perhaps in that five minute break between talk and questions, one could pop a pill, or have a very quick martini. Any one want to write up a grant proposal on that?
Thanks to fp!