Having facilitated a team-building exercise last week, it’s been interesting to see this bit of research. In some ways it confirms with further data what we already know. On the other hand, by doing so it highlights the importance of enabling groups to work together well in order to help people learn and make better decisions together.
groups whose members had higher levels of “social sensitivity” were more collectively intelligent. “Social sensitivity has to do with how well group members perceive each other’s emotions,” says Christopher Chabris, a co-author and assistant professor of psychology at Union College in New York. “Also, in groups where one person dominated, the group was less collectively intelligent than in groups where the conversational turns were more evenly distributed,”
This interlocks with research showing that inclusive classrooms tend to enable better learning, that collective intelligence is enhanced by not having single-point authorities (else all you get is the intelligence of the authority figure) and that emotional intelligence is key to good team-work.
The further finding will be no surprise to many (given the socialised characteristics prevalent in our culture): that groups of women tend to do all of this better than men …