Abstract
During social interactions, groups develop collective competencies that (ideally) should assist groups to outperform average standalone individual members (weak cognitive synergy) or the best performing member in the group (strong cognitive synergy). In two experimental studies we manipulate the type of decision rule used in group decision-making (identify the best vs. collaborative), and the way in which the decision rules are induced (direct vs. analogical) and we test the effect of these two manipulations on the emergence of strong and weak cognitive synergy. Our most important results indicate that an analogically induced decision rule (imitate-the-successful heuristic) in which groups have to identify the best member and build on his/her performance (take-the-best heuristic) is the most conducive for strong cognitive synergy. Our studies bring evidence for the role of analogy-making in groups as well as the role of fast-and-frugal heuristics for group decision-making.
Highlights
Organizations extensively use groups to perform a variety of cognitive tasks [1] and collective decisions are essential for organizational performance [2]
Studies stemming from the group synergy literature illustrate that groups do not manage to achieve strong cognitive synergy but sometimes they even have difficulties to achieve weak cognitive synergy
Our results indicate no overall effect of the manipulation upon strong cognitive synergy, F (1, 79) = 2.31, p = 0.08 or weak cognitive synergy with F (1, 79) = 1.33, p = 0.27
Summary
Organizations extensively use groups to perform a variety of cognitive tasks [1] and collective decisions are essential for organizational performance [2]. Reliance on groups in social life is built on a strong assumption, namely that the array of information exchanged, explored and integrated in groups enhances decision quality relative to individual choices [3,4]. Social interactions unfolding in such collectives shape the emergence of collective choices that transcend a simple aggregation of individual preferences or competencies [8,9,10]. Groups have the potential to become superior (as interacting collectives) to standalone individuals or simple aggregation of individual actions or competencies, this (emergent) potential is not always realized in real-life situations. Understanding the way in which individual choices and competencies are combined and coordinated through social interactions in order to generate superior collective outcomes is of key importance to understanding the emergence of collective cognitive competencies [16,17]
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