Group settings can diminish expressions of intelligence

Group settings can diminish expressions of intelligence
2012 12 07

In the classic film 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda’s character sways a jury with his quiet, persistent intelligence. But would he have succeeded if he had allowed himself to fall sway to the social dynamics of that jury?

Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. "You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study.

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.

"We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ," said Montague. "Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect."

"Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning," said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit."

The researchers recruited subjects from two universities and administered a standard test to establish baseline IQ. The results were not viewed until after a series of ranked group IQ tasks, during which test takers, in groups of five, received information about how their performances compared to those of the other group members.

Although the test subjects had similar baseline IQ scores -- a mean of 126, compared to the national average of 100 -- they showed a range of test performance results after the ranked group IQ tasks, revealing that some individuals’ expressed IQ was affected by signals about their status within a small group.

[...]

Read the full article at: research.vtc

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

Aldo Moro mystery: Italian prosecutors revisit former PM’s 1978 murder
2013 06 17
It was arguably the darkest episode of Italy’s postwar history: the kidnapping of former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978 and the discovery of his corpse 55 days later in the boot of a Renault 4 in central Rome. Despite four trials, numerous investigations and the passage of 35 years, the affair continues to raise questions among Italians, with many sharing ...

Mysterious Subatomic Particle May Represent Exotic New Form of Matter
2013 06 17
In the course of exploring the properties of a strange subatomic particle, physicists may have stumbled upon something even stranger: a mysterious and exotic new form of matter. The intriguing discovery was made more or less simultaneously by two collaborations: the Belle experiment at the Japanese High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and BESIII experiment run by the Institute of High ...

Over 200 Million People Are in the US Facial Recognition Database
2013 06 17
You are probably participating in the facial recognition database whether you want to or not. Most likely, your visage is there to be easily identified, without your consent, even if you’ve never committed a crime. Using the vague criteria of “law enforcement purposes”, the United States has more than 200 million Americans filed away in various facial recognition databases. If ...

Russia says it will not allow Syria no-fly zones
2013 06 17
Russia, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, will not permit no-fly zones to be imposed over Syria, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Monday. "I think we fundamentally will not allow this scenario," Lukashevich told a news briefing, adding that calls for a no-fly zone showed disrespect for international law. Lukashevich spoke before planned talks between President Vladimir ...

Darpa Robotics Challenge: the search for the perfect robot soldier
2013 06 17
The US military’s $2bn robot beauty pageant is all part of its plan to maintain its technological superiority The Atlas robot looks something out of the post-apocalyptic future, or maybe a Will Smith blockbuster. It’s a 330lb cyborg with eerily human-like hands and a head equipped with a laser. It lunges forward with a grim, deliberate clatter on curved slices of ...

More News »