The Impact of Cognitive Style Diversity on Implicit Learning in Teams

Abstract

Organizations are increasingly looking for ways to reap the benefits of cognitive diversity for problem solving. A major unanswered question concerns the implications of cognitive diversity for longer-term outcomes such as team learning, with its broader effects on organizational learning and productivity. We study how cognitive style diversity in teams—or diversity in the way that team members encode, organize and process information—indirectly influences team learning through collective intelligence, or the general ability of a team to work together across a wide array of tasks. Synthesizing several perspectives, we predict and find that cognitive style diversity has a curvilinear—inverted U-shaped—relationship with collective intelligence. Collective intelligence is further positively related to the rate at which teams learn, and is a mechanism guiding the indirect relationship between cognitive style diversity and team learning. We test the predictions in 98 teams using ten rounds of the minimum-effort tacit coordination game. Overall, this research advances our understanding of the implications of cognitive diversity for organizations and why some teams demonstrate high levels of team learning in dynamic situations while others do not.

Social and general intelligence improves collective action in a common pool resource system

“…For instance, Fig. 4 captures two basic postulates: 1) All else equal, the capability of groups to find solutions to sustainability challenges increases with more diverse experiences and modes of inquiry, which we call representational diversity, and then decreases due to the increasing costs of representational gaps (7,28,29). Representational gaps refer to how much energy it takes to get everyone focusing on the same goal such that group effort does not degrade into everyone working at cross-purposes (29).…”

“…Representational gaps refer to how much energy it takes to get everyone focusing on the same goal such that group effort does not degrade into everyone working at cross-purposes (29). For example, Aggarwal and coworkers (7) illustrate that collective intelligence, a measure of the ability of teams to perform well on a battery of tasks (30), first increases and then decreases with increasing diversity in how teams represent problems (visualspatial vs. verbal). In short, an optimal representational diversity exists to solve a given sustainability challenge.…”

“…Diverse experiences and modes of inquiry (but not necessarily preferences) have positive net benefits for cooperation, learning, and problem solving among social groups (e.g., refs. [5][6][7][8][9]. This insight, however, is incomplete.…”

Untapped potential of collective intelligence in conservation and environmental decision making

“…An intermediate level of diversity in thinking styles appears to be particularly advantageous Aggarwal et al. (). Too much diversity within groups can create conflict, reduce interaction and cooperation, and negatively affect cohesion and trust (Güver & Motschnig, 2017).…”

“…Diversity of identity (e.g., demographic differences) and disposition (differences in problem-solving approaches and heuristics) drive CI in small groups (Hong & Page 2004). An intermediate level of diversity in thinking styles appears to be particularly advantageous Aggarwal et al (2019). Too much diversity within groups can create conflict, reduce interaction and cooperation, and negatively affect cohesion and trust (Güver & Motschnig, 2017).…”