Why size matters: groups, dialog and
high quality participation

Some research findings about groups
and discussions

Work by James, Hart and others in the early 1950s showed that:
• Interaction patterns change—becoming more concentrated on the talkative few—as group
size rises; and
• Naturally occurring interactive groups are not observed with more than 6 people

Which people do the talking?

Status and (over) confidence impact on
participation
…the overconfident members were the
ones who spoke the most often, used a
confident tone, gave the most
information, and came across as calm
and relaxed. These individuals were also
more convincing in displays of ability than
other members who were highly
competent.
“A Status-Enhancement Account of Overconfidence”.
Cameron Anderson et al, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Jul 16 , 2012

In a discussion, ‘squeaky wheels’
can pre-empt the agenda
To derive the most useful information from multiple sources of evidence, you
should always try to make these sources independent of each other. A simple
rule can help: before an issue is discussed, [everyone] should be asked to write a
very brief summary of their position. This … makes good use of … the diversity
of knowledge and opinion in the group. The standard practice of open
discussion gives too much weight to the opinions of those who speak early and
assertively, causing others to line up behind them. Gather opinions before
talking them over.
Kahneman (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow.

Does sequencing matter?

Sequencing matters for two
reasons. As we just saw, squeaky
wheels can set the agenda. But
also, as memory research
shows, ‘dysergry* can
masquerade as synergy’ …
* Dysergy—whole is less than the sum of the parts

Although conversation can facilitate remembering when considering what the
group as a whole produces, individual members of the group will remember less
in a conversation than they are capable of when remembering alone, so-called
collaborative inhibition … They may remember something that they would not
remember alone … but, overall and on average, they will remember less. Thus,
the group as a whole may remember more than any individuals alone would
remember in isolation, but each individual is not achieving her individual
capacity to remember. (Emphasis added.) *…+
Fagin, Martin M., et al (2013). "The Adaptive Function of Distributed Remembering: Contributions
to the Formation of Collective Memory." Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1-16.

The retrieval disruption hypothesis
posits that collaborative inhibition
occurs, at least in part, because one
group member’s pursuit of an
effective retrieval strategy disrupts
the use of retrieval strategies that
may be more effective for other group
members
Fagin, Martin M., et al Op Cit.

Dysergy can masquerade as synergy: if my view of
our ‘pool’ of knowledge is that it is more than I alone
can imagine/recall I –and others—can be convinced
how well we did …even though our pool is much less
than the sum of our full, separate contributions could
yield. We might get a warm glow despite
underperforming our potential.

So, both to head off squeaky wheels AND
to reduce collective inhibition, it pays to
‘write first and talk later’ …

What does
the talk look
like?

When the discussion is ‘interactive
dialogue’, group members are
influenced most by those with
whom they interact. In small ( up
to 5 person) groups, the
conversation has this dialogic
character and influence is
governed by the interaction.

In large, 10 person (or more) groups) the communication
is like monologue and members are influenced most by
the dominant speaker.
Fay, Garrod & Carletta (2000) Group discussion as interactive dialogue or serial monologue.
Psychological Science.

Furthermore, ‘conversation is easy’:
“…humans are designed for dialogue rather than monologue… Conversations
succeed, not because of complex reasoning, but rather because of alignment
at seemingly disparate linguistic levels. … the majority of routine social
behaviour reflects the operation of … a ‘perception–behaviour expressway’ …
we are ‘wired’ in such a way that there are direct links between perception
and action across a wide range of social situations.
Simon Garrod and Martin J. Pickering (2004) ‘Why is conversation so easy?’, TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.8 No.1 January

‘The expressway has a
neural basis’:
“…*a+ speaker’s *brain+ activity *pattern+ is … coupled with the listener’s activity
[pattern]. This coupling vanishes when participants fail to communicate. Moreover,
though on average the listener’s brain activity mirrors the speaker’s activity with a
delay, we also find areas that exhibit predictive anticipatory responses. We connected
the extent of neural coupling to a … measure of story comprehension and find that the
greater the anticipatory speaker–listener coupling, the greater the understanding.”
[emphasis added.]
Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication Greg J. Stephens et al (2010) Proc. of the National
Academy of Sciences of the US. vol. 107, no. 32 p. 14425

Emotions make us ‘tick together'’:
Human emotions are highly contagious … Prolonged natural stimulation, such as viewing a movie
or listening to a narrative, results in … intersubject correlation (ISC) in a multitude of brain areas.
… Because emotions make individuals feel, act, and view the world in a similar fashion, emotion-
dependent ISC in the limbic emotion systems, as well as in *other+ networks … *is+ a crucial
mechanism to facilitate interpersonal understanding during emotionally intense events. …
emotions are associated with enhanced ISC … synchronization of brain activation during
emotional encounters supports enhanced contextual understanding across individuals. Emotions
promote social interaction by synchronizing brain activity across individuals . (Emph. Added)
Lauri Nummenmaa et al (2011) Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences of the US . vol. 109 no. 24 p. 9599

How is the group output
affected by composition and
participation?

Collective intelligence
(C) seems to hinge on
3 things:
1. a significant correlation between c and the average social
sensitivity of group members;
2. c was negatively correlated with the variance in the number
of speaking turns by group members. In other words, groups
where a few people dominated the conversation were less
collectively intelligent than those with a more equal
distribution of conversational turn-taking.

3. Finally, c was positively and
significantly correlated with the
proportion of females in the group …
However, this result appears to be
largely mediated by social sensitivity
… because (consistent with previous
research) women in our sample
scored better on the social sensitivity
measure than men . ….
Woolley et al (2010) “Evidence for a Collective
Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human
Groups”, Science
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Among other things, these findings support comments by the late
Aaron Swartz (left) on conferences and their discontents. (See
http://t.co/3fXejpf0QL):
1. Speech is a bad medium for communicating information. (This one is due to Tufte.)
Speech can’t be stopped and rewound, it can’t be carefully examined, it can’t be
slowed down, it can’t be paused, it can’t present complex concepts, and it’s really
very low bandwidth. Just use paper. Tufte suggested giving the audience a bunch of
paper that communicated the important information and have them read through
it before hand.
2. 2. Speech is a good medium for dialog. (Also due to
Tufte.) Speech is best used for interaction. “Are you
sure that’s correct?” “Have you seen this?” …
“Why didn’t you go this way?”
Smart people love discussing things with other
smart people, especially when the others are
informed. Let them!