Session 9: Trust and coordination: Why some groups work and others dont

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Session 9 Trust and coordination Why some
groups work (and others dont)
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Questions

• How does group performance compare with
  individual perfomance?
• What are the benefits vs. costs of working in
  groups?
• Does evolutionary theory help us understand when
  groups will do better than individuals and why?
• Based on evolutionary thinking, can we make
  suggestions on how to improve group
  decision-making and performance?

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Exercise The Horse trading problem

• A woman bought a horse for 40 she then sold it
  for 50 She then bought it again for 60 and
  then sold it for 70.
• How much money (if any) did the woman make in the
  horse trade business?

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Evaluation

• How did groups compare with individuals?
• Real groups versus real individuals
• Statistical groups versus real individuals
• Do groups always outperform individuals?
• What are possible performance losses in groups?

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Group decision-making in social psychology

• Literature often focuses on the detrimental
  aspects of group decision-making (cf. Wilson,
  1997)
• Motivation losses (for example, in brainstorming
  Mullen et al., 1991 freeriding in social
  dilemmas Kerr, 1983)
• Coordination losses (e.g., failure to share
  unique information Stasser Witus, 1987)
• But is that a valid picture? Certainly, from an
  evolutionary perspective, one would expect groups
  to outperform individuals on more complex tasks

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Problems with group decision-making (Di Salvo
et al., 1989)

• Poor communication skills (10)
• Egocentric behavior (8)
• Nonparticipation (7)
• Sidetracked (6.5)
• Interruptions (6)
• Negative leader behavior (6)
• Attitudes and emotions (5)

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1. Social dilemmas and motivation losses (Kerr,
1983)
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2. Losses in Brainstorming

• It appears to be particularly difficult to
  justify brainstorming techniques in terms of any
  performance outcomes, and the long-lived
  popularity of brainstorming techniques is
  unequivocally and substantively misguided
  (Mullen, Johnson, Salas, 1991)
• Current social psychological research seems to
  focus only on performance deficits in
  brainstorming, not benefits

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Group exercise

• Every year millions of Britons go to mainland
  Europe on their holidays Interestingly, not many
  Europeans spend their holidays in Britain. What
  recommendations can you come up with to get more
  Europeans to visit Britain?
• You have 15 minutes to come up with ideas

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Brainstorm method

• Form a group and express your ideas.
• Criticism is not appropriate, both quantity and
  quality of ideas is important. Radical ideas are
  welcome and group members should try to build
  upon others suggestions
• Select one member to act as the recorder of the
  ideas. They should write down each idea

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Nominal group technique

• Each group members writes down ideas individually
  for ten minutes
• One member collects the ideas, gets rid of
  redundancies, and asks for clarification
• This member writes down the list of unique ideas
• This is also a group exercise!!!!

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GROUP THINK
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3. Group think

• According to Janis (1982) many real-life events
  show how highly cohesive prestigious and isolated
  groups make very irrational decisions
• Titanic
• Suez Crisis
• Hitler and napoleons Blunder in attacking Russia
  in winter
• The Bay of Pigs disaster
• The USSRs mistaken war in Afghanistan
• The Iraq war????
• Janis dubbed this group think which occurs when
  highly cohesive groups make faulty decisions in
  stressful situations
• But the empirical evidence for group think is
  mixed, especially cohesion seems to be a good
  rather than bad thing for group decision-making
  (Aldag Fuller, 1993)

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Evolutionary approach to group decision-making
The nomological method

• Hunter-gatherer evidence suggests that most
  complex decision tasks are conducted by groups
  (whether to go to war, where to move to etc.)
  see Ridley, 1996
• Other social animals also use quite elaborate
  group-decision processes, for example, about
  where to move (e.g., baboon, Dunbar, 1983
  African buffalo, Prins, 1987)
• Evolutionary theory suggests that cooperation is
  likely to emerge, even among genetic strangers,
  especialy if the costs of cooperation are low and
  the (potential) benefits are high (e.g., mental
  tasks)
• Specific group-level adaptations for cognitive
  and other forms of cooperation may have emerged
  in humans (Wilson, 2002)

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Group decision-making in an evolutionary context

• Benefits of cooperation are obvious for humans
• On tasks that exceed the capacity of individuals
• Physical cooperation (hunting, warfare)
• Cognitive cooperation (memory tasks, solving
  puzzles)
• But, the underlying mechanisms are not yet very
  well understood
• Cognitive cooperation among social insects
• evidence suggests that honeybees have a group
  mind each bee adds a little piece of information
  to the collective decision-making task even
  without knowing its role in the process (Seeley,
  1995)
• Does this also apply to humans? Do we have a
  group mind?

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Honeybees work together
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Predictions derived from evolutionary theory on
group decision-making

• Groups should do better at complex tasks rather
  than simple tasks relative to individuals see
  Wilson et al., 2004
• Groups should do better when they work together
  longer

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Exercise

• 10 questions to find out the name of the country
  that I have in mind

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Cognitive cooperation in 20 questions task
(Wilson, Timmel, Miller, 2004)
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Transactive memory (Moreland, 1987)

• If teams work together for a longer period, they
  coordinate their actions better and performance
  is enhanced
• This is attributed to a transactive memory
  system, whereby cooperating group members
  remember different aspects of the task and
  combine their knowledge radio assembly task
• But, do they always share unique information?
  (Stasser, 1987)

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Take-home message

• A long evolutionary history of cooperation has
  given humans (and social insects) the capacity to
  reap the benefits of coordinated group action
• As a result, groups do better than individuals in
  most complex tasks as well as tasks that do not
  require a lot of sacrifice (free-rider problem),
  like mental tasks.
• It is not very clear yet which mechanisms allow
  humans to engage in cognitive cooperation, but it
  may have to do with transactive memory or a
  group mind
• Of course, there are deficits to group
  performance but this should not lead to the
  erroneous conclusion that groups are
  dysfunctional!

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Trade

• Trade is the expression of the division of labour
  (between individuals and groups)
• It is (or should be) a nonzero sum game
• Trade is part of hunter-gatherer life-style
  e.g., Yanomano (Chagnon, 1997)
• It has been so for a few million years (at least
  since Homo erectus 1.5 million years ago)
• Trade and feasting serve a purpose
• Trade and friendship the Bankers paradox

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What do you need for trading to develop?

• Division of labour
• Having something valuable to others
• Capacity to exchange goods
• Do you need regulations and government?
• What behavioural, cognitive, and psychological
  mechanisms are needed for social exchange?