When you say a group agrees on a decision, that’s a statistical statement.
Ah. My model of “a group says X” is that the leader or an otherwise high-status member of the group says X, and everyone else is too afraid to disagree publicly. (Privately they may either agree, or disagree, or just want to be left alone.)
The idea that a group belief is a statistical statement about the opinions of the individuals already assumes that the (low-status) individuals matter.
That is a very valid concern regarding sampling and group bias in decision theory. This is also why studies in social sciences tend to have a lot of unaccounted confounding variables, which makes it hard to draw broad conclusions from the data. People who read social science papers probably understand the caveats that the general public don’t have the knowledge and experience of. r/science
Ah. My model of “a group says X” is that the leader or an otherwise high-status member of the group says X, and everyone else is too afraid to disagree publicly. (Privately they may either agree, or disagree, or just want to be left alone.)
The idea that a group belief is a statistical statement about the opinions of the individuals already assumes that the (low-status) individuals matter.
That is a very valid concern regarding sampling and group bias in decision theory. This is also why studies in social sciences tend to have a lot of unaccounted confounding variables, which makes it hard to draw broad conclusions from the data. People who read social science papers probably understand the caveats that the general public don’t have the knowledge and experience of. r/science