

MIT Unravels the Secrets Behind Collective Intelligence - hinto_ize
http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/26/mit-unravels-the-secrets-behind-collective-intelligence-hint-iq-not-so-important/

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gwern
This came up on LW before
(<http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/study_on_group_intelligence/>); I pointed them
([http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/link_study_on_group_intelligence...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/73w/link_study_on_group_intelligence/4neu))
to a previous comment I had seen dissecting the study:
[http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-
tea...](http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-
more-women/ar/3#comment-238026281)

tl;dr: as one would expect, it's not that great and certainly doesn't justify
the title.

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lawlit
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
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
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
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.

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jcmhn
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.

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bfe
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
Do you have a citation for this?

If true, it's counterintuitive - one would expect the risk-tolerant investors
to have higher returns.

~~~
gwern
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...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.145.8230&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

~~~
yummyfajitas
This paper is based on retail investors at a discount brokerage, not asset
managers.

~~~
gwern
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.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Because the asset managers who are not immune to the problems of retail
investors get fired very quickly.

Just as it is hard to generalize from your average facebook user to
programmers, it is hard to generalize from retail investors to professional
traders.

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hermannj314
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.

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Bud
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
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.

~~~
Bud
Not ridiculous at all, although very predictable that this would be downvoted
and controversial.

I didn't say "only" Tea Party folks or fundies, so I'd appreciate not being
misquoted. I also didn't say anything about "understanding" the scientific
method. I think a lot of those folks understand it quite well; they just
choose to cynically lie about it for political reasons, which is the crucial
difference here.

You bringing up Muslims or welfare moms says all we need to know about your
particular attitudes. It's really not my fault if you have a problem
acknowledging the factual reality here. The facts are, the Tea Party is
actively hostile to science, the scientific method, and scientific conclusions
in general. This isn't my opinion, it's not controversial, and it involves no
tricky judgment calls. It's a fact.

~~~
learc83
This wasn't an argument on whether a Tea Party backed political party would be
detrimental to science in general. Your assertion was that we should control
for Tea Party members in a particular scientific study.

If what you say is true \--That a certain subset of the population, that you
find undesirable, will negatively impact the results of the study \--Then, I
will point out another subset of the population who, given you're apparent
political leanings you won't find undesirable, that will impact the study in
the same way.

I did this so that hopefully you would see the problem with arbitrarily
deciding to exclude a group of people who you disagree with from
consideration.

Btw I'm certainly not a conservative. I would also ask you to read my response
to the comment below.

