It is always interesting to understand the physics of group dynamics from a social physchology point of view, which has wide spread impact upon other areas such as economics and business marketing. I was looking at the idea of how being in a crowd can lead a person's abiliy to make good decisions and also perform in a more inferior level than they are used to being an individual. In the process, I stumped upon a book that argues elsewise. Based on the idea that collective knowledge from a crowd can lead to more superior decision making process. The book's central statement says, "The aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group". Examples to support this statement are given by the author such as the search ability of Google, the harvesting method of the bee as well as the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".
However, there is a catch in order for this collective wisdom to be true. We must assume that every individual will always strive to make the best decision based on his individual judgement. All the individuals must make the decision simultaneously. If in a group, there is someone who tries to influence this process, then this argument might fail.
In my opinion, this is a good read for those who are interested in marketing as well as to further their knowledge after reading "The Tipping Point" book. This book extends the discussion in tipping point.
For a summary of this book: Wikipedia!
