Individual versus group use of base-rate and individuating information

Falsification cueing in collective reasoning: example of the Wason selection task

“…Yet, such comparisons have been relatively inconclusive: sometimes groups outperform individuals, sometimes their performance is comparable, and sometimes individuals outperform groups. For instance, using the very same probability judgment paradigm, Argote, Seabright, and Dyer (1986) showed that group judgments are less affected by base-rate information than judgments made by individuals; whereas Argote, Devadas, and Melone (1990) showed that sometimes group judgments are more sensitive to base-rates than individual judgments. This not-isolated example of mixed findings points to the fact that the search for a single answer to the question of whether N þ 1 heads are indeed better than one (see Hill, 1982) may be less productive, both socially and empirically, than the search for answers to the questions of when and why groups perform differently (i.e., better and worse) than individuals (see, e.g., Broadbeck & Greitemeyer, 2000;Kerr et al, 1996 for similar reasoning).…”

Decision‐Making Models and Decision Support

“…This research has shown (1) framing effects and preference reversals (Paese et al, 1993), (2) overconfidence (Sniezek, 1992), (3) use of heuristics in negotiation (Bazerman and Neale, 1983), and (4) increased performance with cognitive feedback (Harmon and Rohrbaugh, 1990). One study indicated that biasing effects of the representativeness heuristic were greater for groups than for individuals (Argote et al, 1986). The conclusion is that group decisions may be better than those of individuals in some situations but are subject to many of the same problems.…”

The debiasing role of group support systems: an experimental investigation of the representativeness bias

“…Argote et al (1986) found base-rate fallacy to be more severe in group judgments than in individual judgments, suggesting an obvious need for some type of support. Argote, Devadas and Melone (1990) found the tendency for groups to be more ignorant about base rates than individuals when the individuating or diagnostic information is informative rather than vague.…”

“…In contrast, the second line of argument, based on persuasive arguments theory (Vinokur, 1971;Burnstein & Vinokur, 1977), suggests, by invoking concepts of choice shifts and polarization, that groups will be less sensitive to base rates. According to Argote et al (1986) ''group discussion produces polarization towards the alternative with the most arguments in the pool'' (p. 67) rather than the correct argument, i.e. the group discussion tends to amplify the tendency of individual members towards the representativeness bias.…”

“…At least two lines of reasoning have emerged to indicate possible relevance of the group setting within the context of representativeness bias (Argote, Seabright & Dyer, 1986). The first suggests that groups will be more sensitive to base-rate information than individuals, because groups have greater amount of resources (Hill, 1982) and more approaches to solving problems (Maier, 1967), as well, groups benefit more from the cancellation of multiple sources of random error (Shaw, 1932;Hill, 1982).…”