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Collective influences on women's intellectual abilities
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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As scientists have found out, for some people, discussing problems in a group has a negative impact on their intellectual abilities. Women are especially susceptible to this.
"Brainstorming" is considered an effective way to solve problems. It is generally accepted that "collective intelligence" prevails over individual intelligence: "two heads are better than one", and five must be even better. However, it is not that simple. According to the latest data obtained at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, working in a group suppresses the intellectual abilities of some people. Their status in the group has a negative effect on them.
As researchers led by Read Montague have found, group discussions of problems, whether on a jury, at a work meeting, or informally at a cocktail party, can change the IQ of some sensitive individuals. The joke about " mind blowing " is almost becoming true.
Montague and his colleagues studied men and women with similarly high IQs (an average of 126, with the national average in the United States being 100). The subjects were divided into small groups and asked to solve various problems through collective discussion. The scientists found that for a significant proportion of the subjects, collective “brainstorming” caused a decrease in IQ in subsequent tests. In their opinion, this is influenced by social cues received from other group members. These cues reflect the hierarchical relationships that develop in the group.
"We found unexpectedly dramatic effects of even subtle social cues in a group on the cognitive performance of individual group members," said Kenneth Kishida, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. "Using scanning, we confirmed that such cues trigger a strong response in the brain."
Based on the IQ assessment results immediately after the brainstorming session, five people from all the study participants were selected into two groups: some retained a high IQ or even increased it, while others had a decrease in IQ. In order to understand the mechanisms, both groups underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain and compared the results. When the team suppresses
The responses occurred in the areas of the brain involved in problem solving, emotional processes, and the reward system, namely the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and nucleus accumbens. Without going into detail, we will say that the nature of the activation or suppression of these areas differed in those individuals who retained a high IQ and those who had lowered it. The latter, in particular, showed high activation in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with the emergence of conflict situations. This indicates that they were uncomfortable in the group discussion situation. Those who retained a high IQ showed activation in the nucleus accumbens, which indicates enjoyment of the process.
Neither age nor ethnicity had an effect on the outcome. The same cannot be said for gender. Of the 13 women, only 3 were in the group that benefited from the group discussion, while 10 experienced a decrease in their intellectual abilities under these conditions.
The authors discuss the results obtained. They emphasize that in a situation of group competition, which most often occurs in modern life, we lose some people who simply cannot demonstrate their intellectual potential in such conditions.