Human Stupidity: Historical: Group Reasoning III

It is not always true that groups always outperform individuals, though. Comparisons between the estimates of a group and those of the best informed individual in the same group did not provide such a clear cut answer. In that case, the results of the experiments were not consistent between different problems. Sometimes the groups were able to provide better results than their most competent member, while, under different circumstances, the best member was capable of outperform the group.




As a matter of fact, Kerr et al.  concluded there is no simple answer to the question of whether individuals or groups are more biased. Both gains and losses have been observed as consequence of obtaining the opinion of groups. Different circumstances on how the group interact can make a significant difference on the outcome as well as the type of question or task proposed. The number of papers on the subject is quite large and, here, I will just comment on a few cases where problems have been observed. The cases I will describe are very far from exhaustive and no claim about importance is made.


A classical case of group decisions going wrong is the circumstance coined by Irving Janis as groupthink in Victims of Groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Groupthink is what happens when the desire to conform and agree with others is such that it interferes with critical thinking. In those situations, people might adopt some idea that they believe better conform to the group norms, instead of actually providing their best independent evaluation. This can happen in a variety of circumstances, from groups with a strong sense of belonging (sport fans or religious communities, for example), to cases where one opinions have a strong moral value attached to them or when people simply want to show support for a leader (for example, their boss).



What is particularly troublesome about groupthink is that, when it is observed, it is not just the case that the group makes decisions that are worse than its most competent member. It can actually happen that the group will reason in ways that are much worse than the average individual of the group would. Examples of this can be often observed in the behavior of crowds in sport events, where insults and violence happen far more often than it would be reasonable to expect if those same people were deciding as individuals.