Harnessing the wisdom of the inner crowd

Stefan M Herzog; Ralph Hertwig

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.06.009

Harnessing the wisdom of the inner crowd

Trends Cogn Sci. 2014 Oct;18(10):504-6. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.06.009.

Authors

Stefan M Herzog¹, Ralph Hertwig²

Affiliations

¹ Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany.

PMID: 25261350
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.06.009

Abstract

Ever since Galton's classic demonstration of the wisdom of crowds in estimating the weight of a slaughtered ox, scholars of the mind and the public alike have been fascinated by the counterintuitive accuracy achieved by simply averaging a number of people's estimates. Surprisingly, individuals can, to some extent, harness the wisdom of crowds within the confines of their own mind by averaging self-generated, nonredundant estimates.

Keywords: crowd within; dialectical bootstrapping; estimation; inner crowd; judgment aggregation; judgments under uncertainty; wisdom of crowds.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Crowding*
Humans
Judgment*
Models, Psychological
Social Behavior*