The benefits of cognitive diversity are not equally distributed about collective intelligence tasks, & are best seen for complex, multi-stage, creative problem solving, during problem posing & hypothesis generation

Sulik, Justin, Bahador Bahrami, and Ophelia Deroy. 2021. “The Diversity Gap: When Diversity Matters for Knowledge.” PsyArXiv. May 10. doi:10.31234/osf.io/hx7ze. Accepted in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Abstract: Can diversity make for better science? Although diversity has ethical and political value, arguments for its epistemic value require a bridge between normative and mechanistic considerations, demonstrating why and how diversity benefits collective intelligence. However, a major hurdle is that the benefits themselves are rather mixed: quantitative evidence from psychology and behavioral sciences sometimes shows a positive epistemic effect of diversity, but often shows a null effect, or even a negative effect. Here we argue that, in order to make progress with these why and how questions, we need first to rethink when one ought to expect a benefit of cognitive diversity. In doing so, we highlight that the benefits of cognitive diversity are not equally distributed about collective intelligence tasks, and are best seen for complex, multi-stage, creative problem solving, during problem posing and hypothesis generation. Throughout, we additionally outline a series of mechanisms relating diversity and problem complexity, and show how this perspective can inform meta-science questions.