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- Vol 3 RE: Chapters 5, 15, 16, App A
- Vol 7 RE: Chapters 6, 15, App D
collective intelligencesocial sensitivityconversational turn-takinggroup performancegroup coordinationcollective problem solvingteam compositiongroup-level cognitionJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Woolley and colleagues ask whether groups display a collective-intelligence factor analogous to the individual factor found across cognitive tasks. In two studies, 699 participants worked in groups of two to five on tasks involving brainstorming, judgement, planning, problem solving, and coordination.
Key ideas
Performance correlations supported a single factor, labelled c, that predicted performance across tasks and on a criterion task. Collective intelligence was weakly related to the group’s average or highest individual intelligence. It was more strongly associated with average social sensitivity, a more equal distribution of conversational turn-taking, and the proportion of women; the gender association was largely statistically mediated by social sensitivity. These are correlational group-level findings, not proof that adding women or enforcing equal speaking time causes effectiveness, and the laboratory tasks and short-lived groups limit generalisation.
Why it matters
For education and teamwork, the study shifts attention from assembling individually able members to interaction quality: groups may benefit when participants accurately read one another, avoid domination, distribute contribution, and coordinate across different kinds of work. Collective performance should be measured across multiple tasks rather than inferred from one outcome.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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