Group size, communication, and familiarity effects in foraging human teams

Abstract

Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolutionary success of humans. Recent experimental work has shown that an absence of communication impairs decision‐making in a foraging task. Here, we found that individuals in larger teams were more likely to reach group consensus and were more accurate and efficient foragers. Individuals in larger teams were also more likely to gesture to one another, while levels of verbal exchange were not significantly different in small and large groups. At last, teams in which individuals reported that they knew one another and rated team members as helpful and information‐seeking were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.

Social familiarity improves fast-start escape performance in schooling fish

“…A thread connecting the stimulus to the release point prevented it from touching the bottom of the tank 86,87 . As previous studies suggest that the school's alignment during an escape response is highest with lateral stimulation at an angle of 30°-120°5 6 , identical stimuli were placed 2 cm from each of the lateral walls in the centre of the swim tunnel. To control for a stimulus side preference, the use of the left or right lateral stimulus was alternated between trials.…”

“…feeding, defence) and to develop an individualised role within their group 2,3 . As such, familiarity maximises many of the benefits of sociality, by minimising aggression, enhancing cooperative foraging, improving growth rates, providing mating opportunities and increasing reproductive output [4][5][6][7] . Unfamiliar individuals, conversely, pose a number of threats to a stable group, including exposure to novel pathogens, harm to offspring, or competition for resources 8,9 .…”

The Effect of Cultural Intelligence, Conflict, and Transformational Leadership on Decision-Making Processes in Virtual Teams

“…Decision-making processes (Cordes 2016;Johnson et al 2018;Oesch and Dunbar 2018;Wei et al 2017) (Task and Relationship) Conflict (Chang et al 2014;Cordes 2016;Plotnick et al 2016) Transformational Leadership (Acai et al 2018;Derven 2016;Gibbs et al 2017;Plotnick et al 2016;Al Zain et al 2018) Cultural Intelligence (Derven 2016;Gao et al 2016;Gibbs et al 2017;Li et al 2017) Decision-Making Process. Decision-making processes are the act of processing information to reach a judgment regarding a problem.…”

How Familiarity Impacts Influence in Collaborative Teams?

“…From the above works, it is clear that biases exist in teams. However, it is also seen that when two individuals are familiar with each other, it affects social forging (i.e., social coordination, collaboration and collective decision) (Oesch and Dunbar, 2018). It could be because an individual is comfortable with the familiar individual that impacts interpersonal relationships.…”

“…The studies found in the literature that have studied familiarity, have used self-report questionnaires to quantify individuals' familiarity with other team members (Oesch and Dunbar, 2018;Adams et al, 2005;Wetmore et al, 2010). A criticism of these kinds of study is that each individual rates its perceived familiarity with the other team member and the understanding of familiarity is different for every individual.…”