That’s because, Yates explains, in a large and highly engaged group, lots of small, independent influences average out, so the overarching direction is hard to budge. But if many individuals become neutral, even just for a moment, the group of decision-makers shrinks.
“With fewer active votes in play, the same small nudge – a brief local cluster moving the other way, a noisy bit of information, a couple of people switching allegiance – produces a larger proportional effect on the group’s direction,” says Yates.
Ultimately, locusts teach us that neutrality can create the necessary pause for everybody to reassess and reach a consensus, says Yates. The takeaway? If you want to overturn the status quo, don’t worry about the indecisive – encourage more people to be so.
Cockroaches with personality
It’s especially hard to reach group conclusions when there are a lot of strong personalities in the debate. Many people with “main character energy” can steer the debate their way, trumping the collective.
But a study with cockroaches suggests that strong individual personalities among a group can actually speed up decision-making.
If personality matters in these small animals, we can imagine the impact it can have on animals living in societies with additional layers of social complexity – Isaac Planas-Sitjà
Some cockroaches are bold, while others are timid. So Isaac Planas-Sitjà, assistant professor at the Tokyo Metropolitan University in Japan, ran computer simulations of how cockroaches aggregate – one that mimics, for instance, how they hide in a specific dark corner behind a fridge. He tweaked the system to include no personality differences, some personality differences and, finally, a lot of personality differences.
It turns out that the models where every cockroach behaved exactly the same couldn’t even get close to what cockroach decision-making is like in the real world. Groups with a lot of personality variation, on the other hand, made collective decisions faster – because they had more social interactions.
“I was very surprised. I expected to see some trend, but not such a clear and repeatable pattern,” says Planas-Sitjà.
It means that cockroach groups with only bold or explorer individuals will find it more difficult to aggregate and choose a suitable shelter because they move too much, he says. And while groups with too many shy individuals may settle fast, they risk choosing a poor shelter.
