The Influence of Homophilous Interactions on Diversity Effects in Group Problem-Solving
Authored by Cesar Garcia-Diaz, Claudia P Estevez-Mujica, Andres Acero, William Jimenez-Leal
Date Published: 2018
Sponsors:
No sponsors listed
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Increasingly diversity researchers call for further studies of group
micro-processes and dynamics to understand the paradoxical effects of
diversity on group performance. In this study, based on analyses of
in-group, networked, homophilous interactions, we aim to explain further
the effects of diversity on group performance in a parallel
problem-solving task, both experimentally and computationally. We
developed a ``whodunit{''} problem-solving experiment with 116
participants assigned to different-sized groups. Experimental results
show that low diversity and high homophily levels are associated with
lower performance while the effects of group size are not significant.
To investigate this further, we developed an agent-based computational
model (ABM), through which we inspected (a) the effect of different
homophily and diversity strengths on performance, and (b) the robustness
of such effects across group size variations. Overall, modeling results
were consistent with our experimental findings, and revealed that the
strength of homophily can drive diversity towards a positive or negative
impact on performance. We also observed that increasing group size has a
very marginal effect. Our work contributes to a better understanding of
the implications of diversity in-group problem-solving by providing an
integration of both experimental and computational perspectives in the
analysis of group processes.
Tags
Agent-based modeling
Diversity
homophily
Model
time
Future
Group-performance
Team
performance
Group performance
Problem-solving
Work group diversity
Demographic faultlines