Collective Behavior

Understanding collective and individual behavior are key to a successful life.

Take a look at the next picture:

It's clear that the little fish here, have a problem.

What's also clear, is that random actions of an individual fish are not likely going to change the situation.


In the next picture, by coordinating behavior, a way has been found to solve 'the problem' :



This solution looks very simple, the question is how to organize this kind of collective "big fish" behavior?

The problem is that often first movers don't benefit from a collective approach in the first stage:


First movers take a risk by sticking out their neck. The are not sure that their fellows will follow. They also take the risk that their actions turns against themselves.

It turns out that one way to get individuals to coordinate their behavior is through morality.

Morality
Our natural sympathy for other people, our fear of shame and even our feelings of guilt, are often enough to stimulate us to participate in a successful collective action.

Albeit it's discussable what the origins of morality are, it's clear that morality can help us to overcome that 'first mover period'. Groups that use concepts like fairness, reciprocity, trust, guilt, and shame, often do better than rival groups.

Interested?
In an excellent essay called A Business Plan for Catalyzing Collective Action , The Point explanes how how these cooperative mechanisms can be created.

Examples
Collective rational or even emotional behavior often plays a decisive role in our society, as may be clear from the 2009 credit crisis turmoil and the escalating bonus madness.

Be aware of individual and collective behavior.

Study "collective behavior mechanisms" and certainly don't forget to integrate the key principles of this collective behavior into your personal Life Plan.

We're all experts!

Ever heard of the Dunning Kruger Effect (DKE)?

DKE is simply said:

Novices overestimate their performance,
Experts underestimate their performance.

According to nobel prize winners Dunning & Kruger (1999), people tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities and performance.

This overestimation mainly occurs when people are unskilled (novices: +500% overestimation !).


Novices (unskilled) have a dual burden:

• They reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices
  
• Their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize this

This also explains why self-assessments often fail. In general people are thinking they're really doing a great job.

According to Krajč & Ortmann (2007), the bad judgements (metacognity inability) that leads to flawed self-assessments, could be better explained as 'unbiased judgements based on biased information'.

Highly skilled people, the experts, suffer from the opposite. They tend to underestimate (10%) their performance.

However it's been proved that feedback, training and making people conscious of DKE, reduces the effect.

Just look around, DKE is omni-present:

• We're all sports experts (soccer, golf, darts)
  
• We all know how to raise kids
  
• Most employees have a 'common sense' opinion about marketing, branding, HR
• We're all employee and family coaches
  
• We all understand the risks of war, nuclear power, skiing

So teach and be aware of what you really know, develop (your skills) in what you would want to know, get help an get sight on what you'll never know, be open to feedback and don't forget to enjoy life in the meantime.

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