Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

The wisdom of polarized crowds

Nature Human Behaviour volume 3, pages 329–336 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

As political polarization in the United States continues to rise1,2,3, the question of whether polarized individuals can fruitfully cooperate becomes pressing. Although diverse perspectives typically lead to superior team performance on complex tasks4,5, strong political perspectives have been associated with conflict, misinformation and a reluctance to engage with people and ideas beyond one’s echo chamber6,7,8. Here, we explore the effect of ideological composition on team performance by analysing millions of edits to Wikipedia’s political, social issues and science articles. We measure editors’ online ideological preferences by how much they contribute to conservative versus liberal articles. Editor surveys suggest that online contributions associate with offline political party affiliation and ideological self-identity. Our analysis reveals that polarized teams consisting of a balanced set of ideologically diverse editors produce articles of a higher quality than homogeneous teams. The effect is most clearly seen in Wikipedia’s political articles, but also in social issues and even science articles. Analysis of article ‘talk pages’ reveals that ideologically polarized teams engage in longer, more constructive, competitive and substantively focused but linguistically diverse debates than teams of ideological moderates. More intense use of Wikipedia policies by ideologically diverse teams suggests institutional design principles to help unleash the power of polarization.

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Political alignment and the relationship between political polarization and article quality.
Fig. 2: Scatter plot with each article’s average editor alignment by number of editors.
Fig. 3: An illustration of the shift in talk page debate activity between teams in the bottom and top thirds of the political polarization distribution.
Fig. 4: Estimated structural equation model linking political polarization with article quality through talk page activity.

Similar content being viewed by others

Code availability

Code used to gather, process and analyse the data is available at https://github.com/KnowledgeLab/wisdom-of-polarized-crowds.

Data availability

Data used in the study are available at https://github.com/KnowledgeLab/wisdom-of-polarized-crowds.

References

  1. Gentzkow, M., Shapiro, J. & Taddy, M. Measuring Polarization in High-Dimensional Data: Method and Application to Congressional Speech (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016).

  2. Fiorina, M. P. & Abrams, S. J. Political polarization in the American public. Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 11, 563–588 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Campbell, J. E. Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 2016).

  4. Joshi, A. & Roh, H. The role of context in work team diversity research: a meta-analytic review. Acad. Manage. J. 52, 599–627 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Page, S. E. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 2008).

  6. Sunstein, C. Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 2017).

  7. Mutz, D. C. Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2006).

  8. Bishop, B. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2009).

  9. DellaPosta, D., Shi, Y. & Macy, M. Why do liberals drink lattes? Am. J. Sociol. 120, 1473–1511 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Gauchat, G. Politicization of science in the public sphere: a study of public trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010. Am. Sociol. Rev. 77, 167–187 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Sarewitz, D. How science makes environmental controversies worse. Environ. Sci. Policy 7, 385–403 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Zhao, X., Leiserowitz, A. A., Maibach, E. W. & Roser-Renouf, C. Attention to science/environment news positively predicts and attention to political news negatively predicts global warming risk perceptions and policy support. J. Commun. 61, 713–731 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Shi, F., Shi, Y., Dokshin, F. A., Evans, J. A. & Macy, M. W. Millions of online book co-purchases reveal partisan differences in the consumption of science. Nat. Hum. Behav. 1, 0079 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Benkler, Y. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 2006).

  15. Bakshy, E., Messing, S. & Adamic, L. A. Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science 348, 1130–1132 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Pariser, E. The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web is Changing What We Read and How We Think (Penguin, London, 2011).

  17. Del Vicario, M. et al. The spreading of misinformation online. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 554–559 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Taber, C. S. & Lodge, M. Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. Am. J. Polit. Sci. 50, 755–769 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Miller, J. M., Saunders, K. L. & Farhart, C. E. Conspiracy endorsement as motivated reasoning: the moderating roles of political knowledge and trust. Am. J. Polit. Sci. 60, 824–844 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Kahan, D. M., Peters, E., Dawson, E. C. & Slovic, P. Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government. Behav. Public Policy 1, 54–86 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Hart, P. S. & Nisbet, E. C. Boomerang effects in science communication: how motivated reasoning and identity cues amplify opinion polarization about climate mitigation policies. Commun. Res. 39, 701–723 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Mannix, E. & Neale, M. A. What differences make a difference? The promise and reality of diverse teams in organizations. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 6, 31–55 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Hong, L. & Page, S. E. Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 101, 16385–16389 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N. & Malone, T. W. Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science 330, 686–688 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Nielsen, M. Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 2012).

  26. Fleming, L., Mingo, S. & Chen, D. Collaborative brokerage, generative creativity, and creative success. Adm. Sci. Q. 52, 443–475 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Wuchty, S., Jones, B. F. & Uzzi, B. The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science 316, 1036–1039 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Nielsen, M. W. et al. Opinion: gender diversity leads to better science. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 1740–1742 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Mill, J. S. & Mehta, U. On Liberty (Henry Regnery Company, Washington D.C., 1955).

  30. Raymond, E. The cathedral and the bazaar. Know. Techn. Policy 12, 23–49 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Greenstein, S. & Zhu, F. Is Wikipedia biased? Am. Econ. Rev. 102, 343–348 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Greenstein, S. & Zhu, F. Open content, Linus’ law, and neutral point of view. Inform. Syst. Res. 27, 618–635 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Viegas, F., Wattenberg, M., Kriss, J. & Ham, F. Talk before you type: coordination in Wikipedia. in 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07) https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2007.511 (IEEE, 2007).

  34. Wilkinson, D. M. & Huberman, B. A. Cooperation and quality in Wikipedia. in Proc. 2007 International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym ‘07) 157–164 (ACM, 2007).

  35. Kittur, A. & Kraut, R. E. Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in Wikipedia. in Proc. 2008 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ‘08) 37–46 (ACM, 2008).

  36. Collins, R. Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory (Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, 2009).

  37. Wulczyn, E., Thain, N. & Dixon, L. Ex machina: personal attacks seen at scale. in Proc. 26th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW ‘17) 1391–1399 (International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee, 2017).

  38. Wikipedia: shortcut directory. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Shortcut_directory (2018).

  39. Cheng, J., Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, C. & Leskovec, J. How community feedback shapes user behavior. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1429 (2014).

  40. Cheng, J., Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, C. & Leskovec, J. Antisocial behavior in online discussion communities. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00680 (2015).

  41. Mercier, H. The argumentative theory: predictions and empirical evidence. Trends Cogn. Sci. 20, 689–700 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Sobel Fitts, A. Welcome to the Wikipedia of the alt-right. Wired https://www.wired.com/story/welcome-to-the-wikipedia-of-the-alt-right/ (2017).

  43. Greenstein, S., Gu, Y. & Zhu, F. Ideological segregation among online collaborators: evidence from Wikipedians. Working Paper 17-028 (2016).

  44. Phillips, K. W., Liljenquist, K. A. & Neale, M. A. Is the pain worth the gain? The advantages and liabilities of agreeing with socially distinct newcomers. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 35, 336–350 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Nam, H. H., Jost, J. T. & Van Bavel, J. J. "Not for all the tea in china!" political ideology and the avoidance of dissonance-arousing situations. PLoS One 8, e59837 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Jemielniak, D. Common Knowledge?: An Ethnography of Wikipedia (Stanford Univ. Press, Palo Alto, 2014).

  47. Sproull, L. & Kiesler, S. Computers, Networks and Work. in Readings in Human–Computer Interaction. (eds. Baecker, R. M., Grudin, J., Buxton, W. A. S., & Greenberg, S.) 755–761 (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1995).

  48. Fairbanks, E. Wiki Woman. The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/63288/wiki-woman (2008).

  49. Bohnet, I. What Works: Gender Equality by Design (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2016).

  50. Dahlerup, D. The Impact of Gender Quotas (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2012).

  51. Besley, T., Folke, O., Persson, T. & Rickne, J. Gender quotas and the crisis of the mediocre man: theory and evidence from Sweden. Am. Econ. Rev. 107, 2204–2242 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Halfaker, A. Interpolating quality dynamics in Wikipedia and demonstrating the Keilana effect. in Proc. 13th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym ‘17) https://doi.org/10.1145/3125433.3125475 (ACM, 2017).

  53. Category: Liberalism in the United States. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Liberalism_in_the_United_States (2018).

  54. Category: Conservatism in the United States. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conservatism_in_the_United_States (2018).

  55. Category: Social Issues. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Social_issues (2018)

  56. Category: Scientific Disciplines. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scientific_disciplines (2018).

  57. Warncke-Wang, M., Cosley, D. & Riedl, J. Tell me more: an actionable quality model for Wikipedia. in Proc. 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (WikiSym ‘13). https://doi.org/10.1145/2491055.2491063 (ACM, 2013).

  58. Harrison, D. A. & Klein, K. J. What’s the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. Acad. Manag. Rev. 32, 1199–1228 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Research: Wikipedia + Politics. Wikipedia https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics (2018).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation SBE-1829366, John Templeton Foundation to the Metaknowledge Network and Air Force Office of Scientific Research FA9550-15-1-0162, and computation support from Cloud Kotta. We also acknowledge support from the Data@Carolina initiative and thank H. Guo for helping with some of the computations. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Feng Shi, Misha Teplitskiy.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Feng Shi

  2. Knowledge Lab, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Feng Shi, Misha Teplitskiy, Eamon Duede & James A. Evans

  3. Laboratory for Innovation Science, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Misha Teplitskiy

  4. Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Eamon Duede

  5. Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    James A. Evans

  6. Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA

    James A. Evans

Authors
  1. Feng Shi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Misha Teplitskiy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Eamon Duede
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  4. James A. Evans
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors designed the research, interpreted the results and drafted the paper. F.S., M.T. and E.D. gathered the data. F.S. designed the code and F.S. and M.T. analysed the data.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Misha Teplitskiy or James A. Evans.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1–3, Supplementary Tables 1–8, Supplementary Methods 1–7, Supplementary Discussions 1 and 2, and Supplementary References.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Shi, F., Teplitskiy, M., Duede, E. et al. The wisdom of polarized crowds. Nat Hum Behav 3, 329–336 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0541-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0541-6

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing