Misnamed heading: Is conflict GOOD for society? 'Swarm intelligence' research links fighting to better decision-making in a community

When a group shares the same goals, they make poor decisions
This is because no-one questions the decision or offers an alternative
In groups with conflicting views, decisions are more methodical
New research builds on the theory of swarm intelligence where groups share decision making
It looked into behaviour of meerkats but principles may apply to humans

It may seem counterintuitive to stick people who don’t get on in a room together and ask them to make difficult decisions, but it could produce the best results, according to new research.
Conflicting views help increase the accuracy and effectiveness of decisions because they can make members of a group question why they have certain goals, and consider the goals of others.
To study this theory, researchers looked at the behaviour and decision making processes of meerkats, but the same principles could be applied to other social animals including humans.

Misnamed heading: Is conflict GOOD for society? 'Swarm intelligence' research links fighting to better decision-making in a community Article-2523128-1A14BE1500000578-201_634x286

Misnamed heading: Is conflict GOOD for society? 'Swarm intelligence' research links fighting to better decision-making in a community Article-2523128-1A14BE1500000578-201_634x286

The research was carried out by the London School of Economics and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

It found that if multiple members in a meerkat group have different goals, when an individual makes a mistake, it has less impact on the group as a whole.
This is because that mistake is from a faction, rather than the collective, so can be offset by another member’s actions relatively quickly.
An example given to the Huffington Post by Dr Larrisa Conradt co-author of the study Swarm Intelligence: When Uncertainty Meets Conflict, is in parliaments.
She explained that in parliaments where everyone is in the same political party, decision making can be poor because everyone has the same goals and no-one questions the status quo.

However, parliaments that contain members from various political parties make stronger, more effective decisions because different members offer alternative solutions to the same problem.

This means they collectively reach a decision that will affect a greater number of people.

The same is seen in juries, as well as in office enviornments.

Dr Conradt continued: ‘Individual decision makers never have perfect information, so their decision making is always subject to error.
‘When members of a decision-making group have conflicting goals, their individual errors are little correlated with one another. Therefore, such a group benefits considerably from decision sharing, since decision sharing offsets uncorrelated errors.’
She continued that these results create a strong case for including ‘different or minority factions’ in collective decisions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2523128/Is-conflict-GOOD-society-Swarm-intelligence-research-links-fighting-better-decision-making-community.html

And because the smallest 'faction' is the individual, the smallest damage is done, when such make errors. So shut down parliaments, etc., because when they get is wrong, the whole society suffers.

Misnamed heading: Is conflict GOOD for society? 'Swarm intelligence' research links fighting to better decision-making in a community

Misnamed heading: Is conflict GOOD for society? 'Swarm intelligence' research links fighting to better decision-making in a community

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