On Mon, March 11, 2013 1:39 pm, Rhys Smith wrote:
> On 11 Mar 2013, at 16:02, Dan Harkins <dharkins@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>> - It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter
>>> and make better decisions than less-diverse groups.
>>
>> I would really like to see this statement either backed up by
>> peer-reviewed apolitical scientific research or withdrawn by the
>> signatories of the open letter. It is highly offensive.
>
> I'm in no way an expect in any of this, but I've heard it said (in other
> contexts than this discussion) that diversity increases the quality of
> decision making in groups. Your message piqued my interest as to whether
> there is valid evidence for whether this was actually the case or not.
Well, you snipped the part where I copied the explicit mention of
race and gender as being axes of diversity.
> To cut a long story short, after a bit of investigation, I'd have to say
> that current scientific thought definitely leans towards this in fact
> being the case.
I detect a bait and switch here. We're told that there is a lack of
diversity at the IETF involving race, gender, geographic location and
corporate affiliation and that this is a problem because diverse groups
"are smarter" than non-diverse groups. Yet these studies talk about
diversity in a much broader sense that includes things like "formal
credentials" and "attention and recall" and "seeking and receiving social
information and support" as well as age, membership in a formal religion
and, yes, race.
So unless this diversity "problem" at the IETF also involves the makeup
of Catholics, teenagers, people with just a grammar school education,
and those with attention deficit disorder, in the general IETF population,
I don't think these studies lean towards the statement in the open letter
as being a fact.
> A selection of references that seem to appear quite often in the various
> bits of literature I've had a browse around for anyone who is interested:
I don't want to go through all of these but the first one presents a
framework with which to understand the dynamics of diversity. It says,
"Our discussion in this chapter is guided by the heuristic of a
theoretical framework that identifies primary constructs and
connects them to form a meaningful territorial map. Within this
framework, diversity is placed as a construct that appears early in
the causal chain of phenomena considered."
What happens if diversity is placed as a construct that appears later in
the causal chain of phenomena? Dunno. But it should be unremarkable
that "diversity" strongly affects the causal chain of phenomena because
it has been designed to be that way. Not very scientific.
Scanning down to the one study that mentioned race, I see the abstract
describes confirmation bias:
"Deliberation analyses supported the prediction that diverse
groups would exchange a wider range of information than
all-White groups."
And the finding is not anything that would lead us to the conclusion
that a racially diverse group is "smarter" than a racially homogenous
group as it was related to the willingness to discuss racism and was
"not wholly attributed to the performance of black participants versus
all-white groups."
In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in
groups makes them "smarter" has no basis in fact. Do you feel that
an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is
equal parts male and female? Really?
Dan.
> Jackson, S. E. May, K. E. & Whitney, K. (1995) Understanding the Dynamics
> of diversity in decision
> making teams in R.A. Guzzo et al, (1995) Team effectiveness and decision
> making in organisations:
> San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.
>
> Johnson, W. B. & Packer, A. E. (1987) Workforce 2000, Work and workers for
> the 21st century:
> Washington DC: Department of Labour12.
>
> Krause, S., James, R., Faria, J. J., Ruxton, G. D. and Krause, J., 2011.
> Swarm intelligence in humans: diversity can trump ability. Animal
> Behaviour, 81 (5), pp. 941-948.
>
> Lumby, J. (2006) Conceptualizing diversity and leadership: evidence from
> ten cases: Educational
> management and administration, Vol. 34, (2), 151-165.
>
> Phillips, Katherine W., Katie A. Liljenquist and Margaret A. Neale. 2009.
> Is the pain worth the gain? The advantages and liabilities of agreeing
> with socially distinct newcomers. Personality and Social Psychology
> Bulletin 35: 336-350.
>
> Mohammed, S., Ringseis, E., Cognitive Diversity and Consensus in Group
> Decision Making: The Role of Inputs, Processes, and Outcomes,
> Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 85, Issue 2,
> July 2001, Pages 310-335,
>
> Sommers, S.R. ( 2006). On racial diversity and group decision making:
> Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations.
> Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 597-612.
>
> Watson, W. E. & Kumar, K. & Michaelsen, L. K.(1993) Cultural Diversity
> impact on interaction
> process and performance: Comparing homogenous and diverse task groups,
> Academy of
> management Journal, 36, 590-602.
>
>
> Best,
> Rhys.
> --
> Dr Rhys Smith
> Identity, Access, and Middleware Specialist
> Cardiff University & Janet - the UK's research and education network
>
> email: smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx / rhys.smith@xxxxxx
> GPG: 0xDE2F024C
>
>