John Heywood once said, “Two minds are better than one”, and this just may be true when people need the best solution to a problem. In Suroweicki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds, he expresses a common belief that if a group is working towards a mutual goal, than their results will by far surpass those of a single individual. The Law of Averages helps determine a group’s ability to collaborate its ideas into a single outcome, which confirms how Surowiecki’s ideas that a larger group of people can provide many accurate predictions. Throughout his book, Surowiecki discusses how predictions and probability are some of the many key ingredients to achieving good results (10). Similarly, the Law of Averages states that groups will predict the correct outcome after a series of trial and error, which supports Surowiecki’s ideas. Even though working in a group might provide better solutions in some situations, many characteristics can hinder that group’s success. More importantly, in order for any group to come to collectively wise decisions, some knowledge is one of the necessary characteristics needed amongst its members.
Another key factor that has sometimes contributed to the success of a group’s answer would be the fact that they may sometimes rely on a single individual to guide the group in the right direction to achieve results (30). Overall, no matter how brilliant a single individual maybe, large groups of people actually turn out to be smarter than a select few. Therefore, groups are better at solving problems, developing opinions, making informed decisions, and predicting the outcome (22). Surowiecki believes crowds are smarter when they work as a team even if it may seem more realistic to work individually (XVII). Surowiecki goe...
... middle of paper ...
...an actually become. Along the same lines, the Law of Averages has also been successful because probability of information is what makes it work. In fact, we can use Surowiecki’s concepts and the Law of Averages in the same way by taking people’s opinions and then averaging them out to get the best answer possible. Overall, my discussions of Suroweicki’s concepts and the Law of Averages are in fact addressing the larger matter of how both of these ideas relate to how a group processes information to achieve a solution. Even more important, I think the truth behind the Law of Averages and the wisdom of crowds is that the best results come from lots of independent individual decisions.
Works Cited
Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Random House, 2004. Print
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Dir. Robert Greenwald. Brave New Theaters, 2005. DVD.
Quinn, Bill. How Walmart Is Destroying America (and the world), And What You Can Do About It. Third Edition. Ten Speed Press, 2005. Print.
Turman, P. (October 13, 2000b). Group Decision Making & Problem Solving: Group Communication [Lecture] Cedar Falls, IA. University of Northern Iowa, Communication Studies Department.
Instead of making decisions independently, now people always rely on others, such as groups or computers, to help them make a decision. Small groups often gives people different points of view and let people understand their situation much more clearly. However, these opinions from others may not be suitable for everyone. James Surowiecki uses the story of the Columbia Disaster to discuss efficiency of small groups. In his essay “Committees, Juries, and Teams: The Columbia Disaster and How Small Groups Can Be Made to Work”, Surowiecki tells us how the small groups can work properly instead of making people “dumber”. Even though, the small group contains people with great
A relevant example is the ‘Nasa’s Moon Survival Test’; it has shown during the class that when people work together, they share their ideas, experience and knowledge and they get a better score than when they do the test individually.
In 1972, Irving Janis presented a set of hypothesis that he extracted from observing small groups performing problem solving tasks; he collectively referred to these hypotheses as groupthink¹. He defined groupthink as “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action²” A successful group brings varied ideas, collective knowledge, and focus on the task at hand. The importance of groups is to accomplish tasks that individuals can not do on their own. The Bay of Pigs, Watergate, and the Challenger disaster are all forms of failure within a group. Specifically, you can see the effect of groupthink of Americans before September 11, 2001. The thought of harm to the United States was unfathomable, but only after the attacks did they realize they were not invincible. When a solid, highly cohesive group is only concerned with maintaining agreement, they fail to see their alternatives and any other available options. When a group experiences groupthink, they may feel uninterested about a task, don't feel like they will be successful, and the group members do not challenge ideas. Stress is also a factor in the failure of groupthink. An effective group needs to have clear goals, trust, accountability, support, and training. Some indicators that groupthink may be happening are; making unethical decisions, they think they are never wrong, close-minded about situations, and ignore important information. Many things can be done to prevent groupthink from happening. One way is to make each person in the group a “critical evaluator”. The leader must ...
... that areas of expertise can be exploited, different people are good at different things. Groups can discuss material, and that discussion can improve the quality of the decision. Groups are less likely to suffer from judgmental biases that individuals have when they make decisions. People are more likely to follow through on decisions made by groups that they are connected to. Also, more monumental decisions can be made in groups, because one member will not be singled out for blame, making the entire group responsible.
According to the article “In Groups we shrink” by Carol Tavris, she contrasts the nature of groups and the nature of individuals. If one person is in a dangerous situation, he or she will seek safety on their own or go to someone for help. However when a group of people are in a bad situation, they will most likely panic and hold back on solving the problem. This is called “diffusion of responsibility” or “social loafing,” according to psychologists (Tavris 151). Carol Tavris concludes that when people are in groups, they respond differently than when they are on their own.
"Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices." Top Documentary Films. Web. 8 Aug 2011. .
Groups can be made up of different individuals that are coming together to accomplish a specific
Greenwald, Robert. "Walmart: The High Cost Of Low Prices FULL MOVIE." YouTube. YouTube, 01 November 2005. Web. 21 May 2013.
Working in groups is challenging at times. Other times it is very rewarding. We are so focused on life that we do not take time to reflect on things as much as we should. Being in a Groups class has opened my eyes to a whole new world. I have begun to question, explore, and even understand how things work. I even get how they work sometimes. Not only is there a process involved in making individual decisions, process is involved in group decisions as well. This paper attempts give insight into my reflection of my group decision process.
This not only relates to the overall idea of the individual’s actions based on group influence but also alludes to the sub idea of the group of the classroom and how the individual does not want to be seen as lesser by giving a wrong answer. In doing this the group influences the individual to go along with the main idea of the group. In this experiment when given three lines to decide which one is more closely related to the original line it was found that the individual, that was part of the experimental group, would often pick the wrong answer to go along with the group (Baron, 2012). The influence stems from the group all choosing the wrong answer then the individual begins to believe that there is something wrong with the answer they had originally chosen due to the fact that the group overall has made a majority answer. The group itself can present tangible influence when they look to the individual to answer. That moment when the group looks toward the individual is where the influence becomes more concrete and the individual’s own beliefs begin to waiver because they believe that perhaps they are wrong and the group is correct
Several experiments and researches have been conducted that have focused on how people behave in groups. The findings have revealed that groups affect peoples’ attitudes, behavior and perceptions. Groups are essential for personal life, as well as in work life.
Walmart’s throughout the United States continue to succeed. Two things that they continue to succeed at is telling the Walmart story in commercials, where we see they continue to lie and “staying the course.” Throughout the documentary they look into struggling families and how Walmart is a big factor in that. The Hunter family ran a hardware store by the name of H&H Hardware and after serving there town for 48 years had to close down due to the arrival of Walmart. Numerous other Mom and Pop businesses will continue to close down due to Walmart and the ability they have to drop sales and also knock the value down on numerous items. Due to most Walmart employees conscious, employees often have to stay late with no overtime pay due to the amount
A group can be define as ‘any number of people who (1) interact with one another; (2) are psychologically aware of one another and (3) perceive themselves to be a group’ (Mullins, L, 2007, p.299). Certain task can only be performed by combined effort of a group. Organisation can use groups to carry out projects, which will help to achieve its overall aim. However, for the group to be successful they must understand what is expected of them and have the right skill to complete the task. . (Mullins, L, 2006)