Doodling | Notion

Research Behind Collective Intelligence

There's decades of behavioural economics research on what actually makes large groups smart vs. stupid at decision-making.

The Four Conditions Research shows crowds produce accurate results when all four conditions are met:

Diversity of opinion among participants
Independence of members from one another
Decentralization (no central authority controlling the group)
Aggregation mechanism (a way to turn individual judgments into collective decisions)

Diversity of Opinion Participants need different perspectives, backgrounds, and information sources. Large homogeneous groups, even with thousands of members, consistently perform poorly because they lack the variety of viewpoints needed for collective intelligence.

Independence Each person must form their initial opinion without being influenced by others in the group. In large groups, when people know what others think before forming their own views, information cascades and social proof effects spread rapidly. Anchoring bias causes people to over-rely on the first information they hear, contaminating independent judgment across the entire group.

Decentralization No single authority should control the group's information or decision-making process. Even in large groups, centralized control creates hierarchical influence where status and authority matter more than accuracy, preventing the full range of knowledge from being considered.

Aggregation Mechanism There must be a systematic way to combine individual judgments into a collective decision. Human led aggregation methods in large groups introduce groupthink, where desire for harmony overrides critical thinking. Conformity pressure and bandwagon effects become amplified, distorting the final outcome.