THE WISDOM OF CROWDS: A REALITY OR A FALLACY?

Year 2025, Volume: 26 Issue: 1, 133 - 153, 22.06.2025

Ahmet Bardakcı , Murat Kantar , Nazan Madak Öztürk

Abstract

Galton’s (1907) and Coste’s (1907) contrasting arguments about the wisdom of the crowds have been examined for almost a century. However, to the best of our knowledge, experimental studies reported in the literature usually focus on crowd’s independent forecasts’ accuracies. Current study in contrast, examines the wisdom of the crowd’s argument by using non-independent forecasts’ accuracy as well as independent forecasts’ accuracy. Three experiments were conducted with students enrolled to Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business (English) and Department of International Trade and Finance of Pamukkale University. Our findings fail to support wisdom of crowds both for non-independent and independent samples. However, findings clearly indicates that individuals tend to be influenced by others while forecasting unfamiliar topics when they are given opportunity to realize others’ forecasts. Furthermore, our findings provide support for anchoring effect.

Keywords

The Wisdom of Crowds, Independence of Preferences, Anchoring Effect

KİTLELERİN BİLGELİĞİ: BİR HAKÎKAT MIDIR YOKSA BİR SAFSATA MIDIR?

Abstract

Galton (1907) ve Coste’nin (1907) kitlelerin bilgeliği hakkındaki birbirine zıt argümanları neredeyse bir asırdır araştırılmaktadır. Ancak bilebildiğimiz kadarıyla literatürde bildirilen deneysel çalışmalar çoğunlukla bağımsız tahminlere odaklanmaktadır. Bu çalışma kitlelerin bilgeliği argümanını; bağımsız ve bağımsız olmayan tahminleri kullanarak ele almaktadır. Bu çalışma kapsamında Pamukkale Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi İşletme (İngilizce) ve Uluslararası Ticaret ve Finans bölümleri kayıtlı öğrencilerle üç deney yürütülmüştür. Bulgularımız hem bağımsız hem de bağımsız olmayan örneklemler için kitlenin bilgeliğine destek sağlamak konusunda başarısız olmuştur. Ancak bulgular, bilmedikleri konuları tahmin etmeye çalışan bireylere diğerlerinin tahminlerini görme fırsatı verildiğinde, başkalarının tahminlerinden etkilenme eğiliminde olduklarını açıkça göstermiştir. Bunun yanı sıra bulgular çapalama etkisine de destek sağlar niteliktedir.

Keywords

Kitlelerin Bilgeliği, Tercihlerin Bağımsızlığı, Çapalama Etkisi

Ethical Statement

Pamukkale Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Araştırma ve Yayın Etiği Kurulu tarafından 25.03.2024 tarihinde Etik Kurul kararı verilmiştir.

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