Theory of intelligent collectives: An experimental physiological approach to group decision-making

We review our theory of robust intelligence (RI) for groups. We examine the quality of decisions by groups in the laboratory under either majority rule (MR) or consensus rule (CR). Theoretically, engagement in decision-making becomes a factor depending on whether an individual is in a group or in competition between groups. From earlier research, measures of engagement in three-person groups included selfreports, counts of utterances during discussions, and changes in electro-dermal activity (i.e., galvanic skin responses, or GSR). We predicted engagement (number of utterances) would be greater under CR than MR; under MR, we predicted that GSRs would be greater (more attention). Based on partial analyses, participants under CR spoke significantly more often during discussions than MR. As predicted, after de-trending GSR data, we found MR produced higher GSRs and shorter discussions. Our recent work in group size has increased to five participants working on Wason Selection Tasks.