There is enough social psychology research to suggest that most of the time people are more efficient alone than in a group, although some tasks take more than one person. Process gain vs process loss, social loafing, groupthink, etc., if you put four people on a team you might get 200%, not 400% return, or worse.
Interesting, for complex tasks that require thought, the most efficient grouping tends to involve groups with diverse backgrounds and a work culture that values disagreement… which is basically the opposite of what’s going on in American government right now, lol.
Interesting, for complex tasks that require thought, the most efficient grouping tends to involve groups with diverse backgrounds and a work culture that values disagreement
Not surprising. Complex tasks involve learning and learning requires some form of information exchange. People of different background pooled together have a much larger spectrum of different information so each one can act as a piece of the puzzle to fulfill the complex task. The disagreement, I imagine, largely comes from having to break your own routine which is irritating.
which is basically the opposite of what’s going on in American government right now, lol.
Yup. It gets even more complex depending on the tasks qualities, like if it’s a one-answer solution (e g. math) or a more open ended one (e.g. policy). Also, other disciplines argue you should also have a diverse group to better represent stakeholders, an especially important part of business and politics.
This seems true only on short time scales, and in corporate work structures. On long time scales and with more collaborative, voluntary work structures, a group of people working together and supporting each other will almost certainly outperform a disorganized collection of non-communicative individuals. We can see this is true because, yaknow, society exists.
There have definitely been a lot of studies that show adding people reduces average efficiency, but there is still the problem of needing more work done without burning people out. A lot of times, the split of work to add additional people needs to happen sooner than when burnout is exhibited.
There is enough social psychology research to suggest that most of the time people are more efficient alone than in a group, although some tasks take more than one person. Process gain vs process loss, social loafing, groupthink, etc., if you put four people on a team you might get 200%, not 400% return, or worse.
Interesting, for complex tasks that require thought, the most efficient grouping tends to involve groups with diverse backgrounds and a work culture that values disagreement… which is basically the opposite of what’s going on in American government right now, lol.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
Not surprising. Complex tasks involve learning and learning requires some form of information exchange. People of different background pooled together have a much larger spectrum of different information so each one can act as a piece of the puzzle to fulfill the complex task. The disagreement, I imagine, largely comes from having to break your own routine which is irritating.
Also not surprising lol
Yup. It gets even more complex depending on the tasks qualities, like if it’s a one-answer solution (e g. math) or a more open ended one (e.g. policy). Also, other disciplines argue you should also have a diverse group to better represent stakeholders, an especially important part of business and politics.
This seems true only on short time scales, and in corporate work structures. On long time scales and with more collaborative, voluntary work structures, a group of people working together and supporting each other will almost certainly outperform a disorganized collection of non-communicative individuals. We can see this is true because, yaknow, society exists.
https://youtu.be/QrGrOK8oZG8
There have definitely been a lot of studies that show adding people reduces average efficiency, but there is still the problem of needing more work done without burning people out. A lot of times, the split of work to add additional people needs to happen sooner than when burnout is exhibited.