two heads are better than one quote?

Question

who wrote that quote? Do you have evidence?

Answer 1

I like working alone. That said, I have often seen people find greater success solving problems when they work with a partner.

The Princeton Weekly Bulletin reported on 2/12/2001 of experiments conducted by two Princeton economists which proved the old maxim with two sets of experiments finding that groups made better decisions on average than individuals.

The results from both experiments are reported in a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research titled "Are Two Heads Better Than One?"

According to the Prince Bulletin, the question's answer surprised even the researchers.

"We thought that there would be disagreement over the right course of action in group settings. We figured that the way the groups would resolve this disagreement would be to wait on making a decision until more data came in," said John Morgan, assistant professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton. "Thus, our (assumptions) were that groups would be slower to make decisions. We also suspected that they would not be significantly better than individuals once they made a decision."

"The main implication of the study is to call into question the conventional wisdom about the 'paralysis of analysis' that is often thought to afflict group decisions," Morgan said. "Our results suggest that even in complex environments, groups are not paralyzed by indecision. Moreover, groups use the data they have on hand to make timely -- and better -- decisions. If I were running a company, I think this would be a good thing to keep in mind when thinking about how to structure task forces for handling various key projects."