Editing Rationality (section)

=== Individual and social ===
Most discussions and research in the academic literature focus on individual rationality. This concerns the rationality of individual persons, for example, whether their beliefs and actions are rational. But the question of rationality can also be applied to groups as a whole on the social level. This form of social or collective rationality concerns both theoretical and practical issues like group beliefs and group decisions.<ref name="Knauff2021b"/><ref name="Horodecka2021"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Townley |first1=Barbara |title=Reason's Neglect: Rationality and Organizing |date=24 July 2008 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/6224/chapter-abstract/149856255?redirectedFrom=fulltext |language=en |chapter=Collective rationality |access-date=18 August 2022 |archive-date=18 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220818103334/https://academic.oup.com/book/6224/chapter-abstract/149856255?redirectedFrom=fulltext |url-status=live }}</ref> And just like in the individual case, it is possible to study these phenomena as well as the processes and structures that are responsible for them. On the social level, there are various forms of cooperation to reach a shared goal. In theoretical cases, a group of jurors may first discuss and then vote to determine whether the defendant is guilty. Or in the practical case, politicians may cooperate to implement new regulations to combat [[climate change]]. These forms of cooperation can be judged on their social rationality depending on how they are implemented and on the quality of the results they bear. Some theorists try to reduce social rationality to individual rationality by holding that the group processes are rational to the extent that the individuals participating in them are rational. But such a reduction is frequently rejected.<ref name="Knauff2021b"/><ref name="Horodecka2021"/>

Various studies indicate that group rationality often outperforms individual rationality. For example, groups of people working together on the [[Wason selection task]] usually perform better than individuals by themselves. This form of group superiority is sometimes termed "wisdom of crowds" and may be explained based on the claim that competent individuals have a stronger impact on the group decision than others.<ref name="Knauff2021b"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Primicerio |first1=Kevin |last2=Challet |first2=Damien |last3=Gualdi |first3=Stanislao |title=Collective rationality and functional wisdom of the crowd in far-from-rational institutional investors |journal=Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination |date=1 January 2021 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=153–171 |doi=10.1007/s11403-020-00288-0 |s2cid=225536288 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11403-020-00288-0 |language=en |issn=1860-7128 |access-date=18 August 2022 |archive-date=18 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220818103340/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11403-020-00288-0 |url-status=live }}</ref> However, this is not always the case and sometimes groups perform worse due to conformity or unwillingness to bring up controversial issues.<ref name="Knauff2021b"/>