In the target article Bentley et al. propose a framework for describing personal and collective decision-making in which decisions vary along two principal dimensions: the extent to which they are made independently versus socially, and the extent to which values attached to each choice are transparent versus opaque. They argue that in at least some domains – such as the generation and transmission of knowledge – the dynamics of how ideas are selected and propagated are approaching hive mind.
Bentley et al. use their dual-axis approach to chart an impressive range of social phenomena. Beyond assigning each phenomenon to a position on the map, however, it is important to examine the factors that guide movement across it (e.g., from the southeast to northeast, as social decisions gain transparency). One such factor is self-awareness: A crowd's members know the social structure and cognitive style of the group and can use this knowledge to alter the supply of information, to shift demand, and to change patterns of consumption. In doing so, the crowd guides its own trajectory.
For instance, we consider public awareness of global climate change, which lags behind a consensus among scientists that it is the result of human activities. What underlies this collective inertia? One intriguing interpretation advanced by Bentley et al. (Reference Bentley, Garnett, O'Brien and Brock2012) is that public discourse on the topic follows the “boom-and-bust” cycles that are characteristic of the southeast: high rates of imitation and low levels of transparency. This is meant to be contrasted with the pattern of keyword usage among climate scientists, which shows a lower rate of turnover, characteristic of the northeast: strong influences of social learning, but, it is argued, more transparency about the utility of widely used terminology.
The view suggested by this comparison, featured prominently in the target article, is that the kind of group determines how ideas are transmitted between its members: scientists decide in one way, the public in another. We question the premise that collective behavior exhibited by professional knowledge-makers is fundamentally different from that of the non-specialist laity. Rather, we suggest that what distinguishes the two patterns of data-handling behavior is the degree of motivation to invest in a question and seek out or generate information to address it. Such a drive is tantamount to northward movement on the map, toward positions of reduced ignorance.
Moreover, we propose that – in this era of big data more than ever before – the crowd plots its own trajectory on Bentley et al.’s map. Such a capacity for collective mobilization is a consequence of what we term self-awareness. In this context, we take self-awareness to be a group-level analogue of metacognition – in part, it is the capacity for a group to diagnose gaps in its own knowledge and to act to fill them.
How does a group gain self-awareness? As with scientific disagreement, political controversy motivates people to find gaps in each other's knowledge. This is especially true when the stakes are high. For instance, there is currently public interest in legislation that regulates labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) distributed as food (Burton et al. Reference Burton, Rigby, Young and James2001; Frewer et al. Reference Frewer, van der Lans, Fischer, Reinders, Menozzi, Zhang, van den Berg and Zimmermann2013). At first, public discourse on the topic may primarily rely on lay intuitions about the dangers and merits of GMOs (Mielby et al. Reference Mielby, Sandøe and Lassen2012). At the same time, there is a large scientific literature that can be brought to bear on the debate (Conner et al. Reference Conner, Glare and Nap2003; Kuiper et al. Reference Kuiper, Kleter, Noteborn and Kok2001), with interested groups taking remedial efforts by using outside knowledge to bolster their own position and identify shortcomings in those of others. These insights may broadcast widely using information technologies associated with the big-data era, broadening the scope of public understanding and sharpening the conversation among dissenting perspectives. This exchange pushes the community as a whole further north on the map.
A fruitful avenue for future research would involve tracking a single public debate longitudinally, by monitoring decision-makers’ trajectory on the map. This might capture, for example, how the dynamics of public discourse evolve from initial states of ignorance in the southeast toward later states of insight as the public becomes invested in the outcome of a particular debate.
Beyond its utility in social science research, we think Bentley et al.’s framework will be most useful insofar as it leads to greater awareness of the modes of collective decision-making. This awareness will make it possible for individuals and groups to reposition themselves on the map when faced with uncertainty. Rather than endorsing a fatalism toward the hive mind, we suggest that self-awareness is the critical factor that lends flexibility to human choices, allowing us to seek out new sources of information, adopt new modes of decision-making, and perhaps even generate new knowledge in response.
In the target article Bentley et al. propose a framework for describing personal and collective decision-making in which decisions vary along two principal dimensions: the extent to which they are made independently versus socially, and the extent to which values attached to each choice are transparent versus opaque. They argue that in at least some domains – such as the generation and transmission of knowledge – the dynamics of how ideas are selected and propagated are approaching hive mind.
Bentley et al. use their dual-axis approach to chart an impressive range of social phenomena. Beyond assigning each phenomenon to a position on the map, however, it is important to examine the factors that guide movement across it (e.g., from the southeast to northeast, as social decisions gain transparency). One such factor is self-awareness: A crowd's members know the social structure and cognitive style of the group and can use this knowledge to alter the supply of information, to shift demand, and to change patterns of consumption. In doing so, the crowd guides its own trajectory.
For instance, we consider public awareness of global climate change, which lags behind a consensus among scientists that it is the result of human activities. What underlies this collective inertia? One intriguing interpretation advanced by Bentley et al. (Reference Bentley, Garnett, O'Brien and Brock2012) is that public discourse on the topic follows the “boom-and-bust” cycles that are characteristic of the southeast: high rates of imitation and low levels of transparency. This is meant to be contrasted with the pattern of keyword usage among climate scientists, which shows a lower rate of turnover, characteristic of the northeast: strong influences of social learning, but, it is argued, more transparency about the utility of widely used terminology.
The view suggested by this comparison, featured prominently in the target article, is that the kind of group determines how ideas are transmitted between its members: scientists decide in one way, the public in another. We question the premise that collective behavior exhibited by professional knowledge-makers is fundamentally different from that of the non-specialist laity. Rather, we suggest that what distinguishes the two patterns of data-handling behavior is the degree of motivation to invest in a question and seek out or generate information to address it. Such a drive is tantamount to northward movement on the map, toward positions of reduced ignorance.
Moreover, we propose that – in this era of big data more than ever before – the crowd plots its own trajectory on Bentley et al.’s map. Such a capacity for collective mobilization is a consequence of what we term self-awareness. In this context, we take self-awareness to be a group-level analogue of metacognition – in part, it is the capacity for a group to diagnose gaps in its own knowledge and to act to fill them.
How does a group gain self-awareness? As with scientific disagreement, political controversy motivates people to find gaps in each other's knowledge. This is especially true when the stakes are high. For instance, there is currently public interest in legislation that regulates labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) distributed as food (Burton et al. Reference Burton, Rigby, Young and James2001; Frewer et al. Reference Frewer, van der Lans, Fischer, Reinders, Menozzi, Zhang, van den Berg and Zimmermann2013). At first, public discourse on the topic may primarily rely on lay intuitions about the dangers and merits of GMOs (Mielby et al. Reference Mielby, Sandøe and Lassen2012). At the same time, there is a large scientific literature that can be brought to bear on the debate (Conner et al. Reference Conner, Glare and Nap2003; Kuiper et al. Reference Kuiper, Kleter, Noteborn and Kok2001), with interested groups taking remedial efforts by using outside knowledge to bolster their own position and identify shortcomings in those of others. These insights may broadcast widely using information technologies associated with the big-data era, broadening the scope of public understanding and sharpening the conversation among dissenting perspectives. This exchange pushes the community as a whole further north on the map.
A fruitful avenue for future research would involve tracking a single public debate longitudinally, by monitoring decision-makers’ trajectory on the map. This might capture, for example, how the dynamics of public discourse evolve from initial states of ignorance in the southeast toward later states of insight as the public becomes invested in the outcome of a particular debate.
Beyond its utility in social science research, we think Bentley et al.’s framework will be most useful insofar as it leads to greater awareness of the modes of collective decision-making. This awareness will make it possible for individuals and groups to reposition themselves on the map when faced with uncertainty. Rather than endorsing a fatalism toward the hive mind, we suggest that self-awareness is the critical factor that lends flexibility to human choices, allowing us to seek out new sources of information, adopt new modes of decision-making, and perhaps even generate new knowledge in response.