In a study comparing individual performance with group performance, Laughlin, Zander, Knievel, and Tan found that groups consistently outperformed the best of the individuals. The task was a letters-to-numbers problem in which an arithmetic problem was presented substituting a letter in place of each digit. Participants had to determine which letters correspond to each number. Three-person groups competed with individuals and scores were compared for the groups and the best of individuals. The dependent variable was the number of trials needed to solve each problem. The following data are similar to those obtained in the study.
Groups Individuals
n=15 n=15
M=3.8 M=4.7
SS=15.4 SS=18.2