“Why size matters … and so does

the ‘mix’ and the ‘process”:

research results on groups,
conversations and conference
practice

Stephen Mugford
August 27th , 2012
Some research findings about
groups and discussions
Work by James, Hart and others in
the early 1950s showed that:

•Interaction patterns change—

becoming more concentrated on the
talkative few—as group size rises; and
•Naturally occurring interactive groups
are not observed with more than 6
people
Which people do the talking?
 Status and (over) confidence
impact on participation
…the overconfident members were the ones who
spoke the most often, used a confident tone,
gave the most information, and came across as
calm and relaxed. These individuals were also
more convincing in displays of ability than other
members who were highly competent.

“A Status-Enhancement Account of Overconfidence”. Cameron Anderson et

al, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Jul 16 , 2012
 In a discussion, ‘squeaky wheels’
can pre-empt the agenda

To derive the most useful information from multiple

sources of evidence, you should always try to make these
sources independent of each other. A simple rule can help:
before an issue is discussed, [everyone] should be asked to
write a very brief summary of their position. This … makes
good use of … the diversity of knowledge and opinion in the
group. The standard practice of open discussion gives too
much weight to the opinions of those who speak early and
assertively, causing others to line up behind them. Gather
opinions before talking them over.

Kahneman (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow.

What does the talk look like?
When the discussion is
‘interactive dialogue’, group
members are influenced most
by those with whom they
interact. In small, 5 person
groups, the conversation has
this dialogic character and
influence is governed by the
interaction.
In large, 10 person (or more)
groups) the communication is
like monologue and members
are influenced most by the
dominant speaker.

Fay, Garrod & Carletta (2000) Group discussion as

interactive dialogue or serial monologue.
Psychological Science.
Furthermore, ‘conversation is easy’:
“…humans are designed for dialogue rather than
monologue… Conversations succeed, not because of
complex reasoning, but rather because of
alignment at seemingly disparate linguistic levels.
… the majority of routine social behaviour reflects
the operation of … a ‘perception–behaviour
expressway’ … we are ‘wired’ in such a way that
there are direct links between perception and
action across a wide range of social situations.
Simon Garrod and Martin J. Pickering (2004) ‘Why is conversation so
easy?’, TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.8 No.1 January
‘The expressway has a neural basis’:
“…[a] speaker’s [brain] activity [pattern] is … coupled with
the listener’s activity [pattern]. This coupling vanishes
when participants fail to communicate. Moreover, though
on average the listener’s brain activity mirrors the
speaker’s activity with a delay, we also find areas that
exhibit predictive anticipatory responses. We connected
the extent of neural coupling to a … measure of story
comprehension and find that the greater the anticipatory
speaker–listener coupling, the greater the understanding.”
[emphasis added.]

Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication

Greg J. Stephens et al (2010) Proc. of the National Academy of
Sciences of the US. vol. 107, no. 32 p. 14425
Emotions make us ‘tick together'’:
Human emotions are highly contagious … Prolonged natural
stimulation, such as viewing a movie or listening to a narrative,
results in … intersubject correlation (ISC) in a multitude of
brain areas. … Because emotions make individuals feel, act, and
view the world in a similar fashion, emotion-dependent ISC in
the limbic emotion systems, as well as in [other] networks … [is]
a crucial mechanism to facilitate interpersonal understanding
during emotionally intense events. … emotions are associated
with enhanced ISC … synchronization of brain activation
during emotional encounters supports enhanced contextual
understanding across individuals. Emotions promote social
interaction by synchronizing brain activity across individuals .
(Emph. Added)

Lauri Nummenmaa et al (2011) Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences of the US . vol.
109 no. 24 p. 9599
How is the group output
affected by composition and
participation?
Collective intelligence (C) seems to hinge on 3
things:
•a significant correlation between c and the
average social sensitivity of group members
•c was negatively correlated with the
variance in the number of speaking turns by
group members. In other words, groups
where a few people dominated the
conversation were less collectively intelligent
than those with a more equal distribution of
conversational turn-taking.
• Finally, c was positively and significantly
correlated with the proportion of females
in the group … However, this result
appears to be largely mediated by social
sensitivity … because (consistent with
previous research) women in our sample
scored better on the social sensitivity
measure than men . ….

Woolley et al (2010) “Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in

the Performance of Human Groups”, Science
 Group diversity 2
… whereas task-related diversity can be instrumental
in team effectiveness, bio-demographic diversity
[ e.g. gender mix] may actually not affect team
performance in any meaningful way. It appears that
the beneficial linkage between bio-demographic
diversity and team performance suggested in the
team literature has been overstated [and often
results from segregating groups into different
specialties].

“The Effects of Team Diversity on Team Outcomes: A Meta-Analytic

Review of Team Demography”, Sujin K. Horwitz and Irwin B. Horwitz,
Journal of Management 2007
 So this is why…
• Small groups work for real dialogue
and bigger ones don’t.
• You have to consciously ‘engineer’ if
you want to avoid ‘squeaky wheels’ and
other dominant talkers.
• Things like WorldCafes and Fishbowls
work so much better for conferring
than ‘plenaries’ and ‘panels’.