Estévez-Mujica Claudia P, Acero Andrés, Jiménez-Leal William, Garcia-Diaz César
Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.
Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci. 2018 Jan;22(1):77-102.
Increasingly diversity researchers call for further studies of group micro-processes and dynamics to understand the paradoxical effects of diversity on group performance. In this study, based on analyses of in-group, networked, homophilous interactions, we aim to explain further the effects of diversity on group performance in a parallel problem-solving task, both experimentally and computationally. We developed a 'whodunit' problem-solving experiment with 116 participants assigned to different-sized groups. Experimental results show that low diversity and high homophily levels are associated with lower performance while the effects of group size are not significant. To investigate this further, we developed an agent-based computational model (ABM), through which we inspected (a) the effect of different homophily and diversity strengths on performance, and (b) the robustness of such effects across group size variations. Overall, modeling results were consistent with our experimental findings, and revealed that the strength of homophily can drive diversity towards a positive or negative impact on performance. We also observed that increasing group size has a very marginal effect. Our work contributes to a better understanding of the implications of diversity in-group problem-solving by providing an integration of both experimental and computational perspectives in the analysis of group processes.
越来越多的多样性研究人员呼吁进一步研究群体微观过程和动态，以理解多样性对群体绩效的矛盾影响。在本研究中，基于对群体内、网络化、同质化互动的分析，我们旨在通过实验和计算进一步解释多样性在并行问题解决任务中对群体绩效的影响。我们开展了一项“破案”问题解决实验，将116名参与者分配到不同规模的小组中。实验结果表明，低多样性和高同质化水平与较低的绩效相关，而群体规模的影响并不显著。为了进一步研究这一问题，我们开发了一个基于主体的计算模型（ABM），通过该模型我们考察了（a）不同同质化和多样性强度对绩效的影响，以及（b）这些影响在群体规模变化中的稳健性。总体而言，建模结果与我们的实验结果一致，并揭示了同质化强度可以使多样性对绩效产生积极或消极影响。我们还观察到，增加群体规模的影响非常微小。我们的工作通过在群体过程分析中整合实验和计算视角，有助于更好地理解多样性在群体问题解决中的影响。
