How do you think this work might generalize to conditions where task performance (and thus judgements of peer competence) are not as apparent? Performance on this task is objectively measurable via, e.g., MSE; what about tasks where there is no clear performance metric?
How do you think peer choice in the construction of social networks might be influenced by knowledge/estimation of others' social networks? For instances, if I know someone is a part of many peers' social networks, might that impact my assessment of whether they should form part of mine, perhaps irrespective of their task competence?
In the talk, I will present a follow-up study where we manipulate the quality of feedback. But you are right; this will only somewhat address your question; generalizability is an issue, and the nature of the task could play an important role. I will try to convince you that we need a new "research program" to adequately address your question... I will pitch some ideas on where to start on Thursday, and I would love to hear your thoughts :)
Selective social learning plays an important role in shaping our social networks. We are prestige biased (i.e., based on popularity), as well as being skill and success biased. Only the later was examined in our experiment and participants did not place equal weights on their neighbors when they revise their answer. Great references on selective social learning and prestige bias:
Wisdom, Thomas N., Xianfeng Song, and Robert L. Goldstone. "Social learning strategies in networked groups." Cognitive Science 37.8 (2013): 1383-1425.
Henrich J, Chudek M, Boyd R. The Big Man Mechanism: how prestige fosters cooperation and creates prosocial leaders. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2015.
Henrich J. The secret of our success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press; 2015 (check Chapter 4 & Chapter 8).
cool work! Two related questions:
How do you think this work might generalize to conditions where task performance (and thus judgements of peer competence) are not as apparent? Performance on this task is objectively measurable via, e.g., MSE; what about tasks where there is no clear performance metric?
How do you think peer choice in the construction of social networks might be influenced by knowledge/estimation of others' social networks? For instances, if I know someone is a part of many peers' social networks, might that impact my assessment of whether they should form part of mine, perhaps irrespective of their task competence?