May 15
2009
Group Inefficiency
Last week I pointed to a piece about how groups tend towards more extreme opinions and now this week comes some information about how inefficiently groups operate. Overcoming Bias points to an entry about how groups work that points out, "groups tend to spend most of their time discussing the information shared by members, which is therefore redundant, rather than discussing information known only to one or a minority of members. This is important because those groups that do share unique information tend to make better decisions."
It's interesting to think about this in terms of groups tending to convince themselves to the most extreme opinion. People tend not to want to question the group, no matter how extreme it may get, only offering information that will be embraced. (As usual, most of this makes logical sense to everyone, but is interesting in context of a study.)
Tags: culture, psychology
Yes, I believe there is no better demonstration of this group-think mentality than on Twitter.
I find myself taking days off here and there when [fill in the blank tempest in teapot] discussion erupts.
Normally it's some "issue" so far blown out of proportion and irrelevant to the world at large that it makes me wonder if anyone in the echo chamber is paying attention to what's beyond their computer screen.
Listen, I'm not immune from jumping on the pile every now and then, but at least I'm conscious enough to walk away once in a while until things die down.