The Paradox of Interaction: Communication Network Centralization, Shared Task Experience, and the Wisdom of Crowds in Online Crowdsourcing Communities

Research on the wisdom of crowds (WOC) identifies two paradoxical effects of communication. The social influence effect hampers the WOC, whereas the collective learning effect improves crowd wisdom. Yet it remains unclear under what conditions such communication impedes or enhances collective wisdom. The current study examined two features characterizing communication in online communities, communication network centralization and shared task experience, and their effect on the WOC. Both these features can serve as indicators of the likelihood that underlying communication may facilitate either social influence or collective learning. With an 8-year longitudinal behavioral-trace data set of 269,871 participants and 1,971 crowds, we showed that communication network centralization negatively affected the WOC. By contrast, shared task experience positively predicted the WOC. Shared task experience also moderated the effect of communication network centralization such that centralized communication networks became more beneficial for crowd performance as shared task experience increased.