BTECH research seminar

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Comparing groups’ and individuals’ search behavior across problem complexity Management studies of human search have predominantly focused on individuals' search processes or how to organize collectives to improve performance. More generally, studies on group vs. individual performance have tried to establish boundary conditions for when and why groups are superior. 

However, we argue that there is an opportunity to advance our insight if we can understand the tension between the heterogeneity of individual search strategies and the tendency towards conformity within collectives. Here, we present the results of a pre-registered experiment, where 250 groups of four and 250 individuals played the game Crystal Crop Fever, in which players search directly on a 2D problem landscape, varying the problem complexity.

We investigate the differences in individual and collective search behavior and find that groups perform better overall compared to individuals, in both simple and complex landscapes. We outline how the interplay between heterogeneity and conformity enables groups to achieve an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation, which then leads to improved performance.