The Wisdom of Crowds: Impact of Collective Size and Expertise Transfer on Collective Performance

We explore the performance of collectives on judgments tasks along two dimensions: crowd-size and expertise transferability. Based on an experimental investigation of the judgment ability of 478 subjects and sub-samples thereof, we identify that crowd-size matters, but only within limits. We also identify limited transferability of expertise, largely based on an anchor-and-adjust heuristic. Collective size and expertise transfer effects are moderated by task difficulty and are strongest for tasks in a medium difficulty range.