What Makes the Crowd Wise? The Effect of Crowd Structures on the Wisdom of Crowds in Collective Evaluation Tasks

• In Event: Trick or Tweet? Network and Crowd Dynamics

Abstract

With the prosperity of crowdsourcing in recent years, the phenomenon of wisdom of crowds has attracted significant attention in both popular culture and academic research. The current study examines the wisdom of crowds performing collective evaluation tasks in an online community, as well as the structural factors that impact the crowd’s performance. We found evidence supporting the idea of wisdom of the crowd - their evaluation of the target was found to be predictive of the target's actual outcome. Consistent with prior theorization of the wisdom of crowds, crowd size positively influenced the crowd’s performance. Yet contrary to the theory, crowd disagreement (i.e. difference in opinions/attitudes within the crowd) negatively influenced the performance of crowds. In addition, while existing theories have neglected the effects of communication in crowd collaboration, we found that centralization of communication (i.e., inequality in communication network) was negatively related to the wisdom of crowds.

Authors

• Bei Yan, University of California Santa Barbara

• Lian Jian, U of Southern California

• Ruqin Ren, U of Southern California

• Janet Fulk, U of Southern California

• Emily Sidnam, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

• Peter Monge, U of Southern California