Collective intelligence depends less on individual intelligence than on the social sensitivity of it

[Bird]

Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups

Anita Williams Woolley,1,* Christopher F. Chabris,2,3 Alexander Pentland,3,4 Nada Hashmi,3,5 Thomas W. Malone3,5
Psychologists have repeatedly shown that a single statistical factor

 

[enfp can be shy]

It's a shame that so few good scientific journals publish their articles freely and fully available for everyone. This forces people to narrow their competency to some very specific area to which they would dedicate funds for memberships and subscriptions, or get guild privileges.

Anyway, my first reaction to collective intelligence is that it's not fixed, at all. A specific group of people will improve their group performance immensely, after they live some time together, or at least perform together regularly.

In general, intelligence, as in, performance on prima vista without proper training, is a bit overrated. Because it remains useless and limited if it actually can't be developed further, and the ability for further development is not measured by it.

 

[TheLastMohican]

Anyway, my first reaction to collective intelligence is that it's not fixed, at all.

This. I suspect that the results would have shown more correlation with individual intelligence if the experiment had carried on for some time, allowing the group members to learn who was good at what. That could go both ways: some groups could bond and work with increasing efficiency, while others could get stuck with troublesome members breeding internal competition and a breakdown of cooperation. The lubrication of social skills is something of an equalizer.
If put to the task immediately, groups would have to rely more heavily on rapid familiarization and harmonization. Those skills have diminishing marginal utility, however: given more time, the less-sociable groups can catch up, and then individual talents provide the ability to excel beyond the baseline.