recent research

More random pickings from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• For complex problems, go with your gut.
• Emotions are contagious - as seen through Facebook status updates.
• How to encourage organ donation? Cue regret. (And how to encourage moral behavior in general? Place a pair of eyes in view.)
• In car designs, we prefer the prototypical but with a little complexity on top. (But when it comes to architecture, we prefer the prototypical and less complex.)
• Poor impulse control may not always be a bad thing. (But those of us with poor impulse control, can train ourselves to resist temptation nonetheless.)
• We not only judge people more who are actively (vs. passively) immoral; we are also less apt to be actively (vs. passively) immoral.
• A comparison of Northern vs Southern public identities - as surmised from personal ads.
• Individualism is good for the economy.
• Montreal: how a creative urban petri dish gave birth to Cirque du Soleil.
• Want to know what tunes will be future hits: hook a few teens up to an MRI.
• The messenger is the most powerful message - at least when it comes to political videos on Youtube. (And Youtube watchers feel more politically effective than non-watchers, although they're more cynical about government.)
• A sense of humor is, no joke, good for dating.

recent research

More from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Are their fundamental differences between tight and loose cultures? A study of 33 nations tries to tease them out.
• Irrational markets: 41% of auctioned gift-certificates on eBay are bid up beyond their face value.
• Reading about stupid people can make you temporarily stupid.
• Want to ace that test? Don't look at red.
• Getting money can be lethal.
• Terror makes you cling to your group - but only if you don't believe in the afterlife.

Genetically modified crowds

To anyone familiar with human stampedes, financial panics or professional soccer games, the “Wisdom of Crowds” may seem more like an oxymoron than a legitimate pursuit of study.

But as James Surowiecki so adeptly describes in his book of that name, crowds can be wise.

Under certain conditions. First, they must be diverse; homogeneous groups will be limited – or aggravated – by their shared narrow perspective. Next, groups must be set up so that individuals can think independently, thus avoiding the twin traps of groupthink and mis-information cascades. Finally, they have to have a way to aggregate their ideas, inputs and decisions.

Open source communities and (some) markets are good examples that meet all three conditions. Filter bubbles, which encourage homogeneity and cascades while eschewing communal aggregation, are not.

But if filter bubbles may make online communities stupid, could we make algorithms that make us collectively smarter?

We’re probably a long way off, but the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT is at least moving in the direction. Led by Thomas Malone, the center is looking more deeply at the “DNA” of smart groups; how the “what, who, why and how” of a group correlates to group intelligence.

In a study published last year, Malone and his colleagues discovered that average intelligence, for one, does not predict group intelligence. Other factors, such as group cohesion, satisfaction and motivation, are only moderately correlated. What does make a group smarter? Having a few people who are “socially sensitive;” that is, members who tend to be more open and receptive.

Malone and his crew are taking results like that and mapping them onto a “genome” of group intelligence. Workplaces and organizations are taking note, but so are news sites and online government initiatives interested in harnessing the intelligence of readers and constituents. Have an under-producing team or a comment thread full of flamers? Time for some group dynamic gene-splicing.

It might be too far a reach to translate MIT’s work to the the group dynamics of the internet as a whole – at least in the near future. But perhaps one day we’ll be building algorithms to maximize collective intelligence rather than just personal relevance.

cross-posted from TheFilterBubble

recent research

More finds from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Stronger family ties may mean weaker social capital.
• The age of fairness and self-sacrifice: 8 years old.
• We're more charitable tomorrow than today.
• We know ourselves all too well: people tend to avoid situations where they know they can deceive others and get away with it.
• Thinking of ourselves makes us stricter judges of fairness.
• "I'll let the other guy help": 50 years of bystander-effect studies.
• Do-gooders are more selfish; they're just better at integrating selfishness with communitarian impulses into enlightened self-interest.