When two heads aren’t better than one
Leaders often have to decide whether to delegate projects to individuals or a group. According to a new study, it should depend on the task.
Faculty
Abdullah Almaatouq is a computational social scientist and the Douglas Drane Career Professor in Information Technology at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Abdullah’s research focuses on improving cooperation, coordination, and collective intelligence in decision-making systems, such as teams, committees, crowds, markets, and elections. Abdullah also explores ways to advance social and behavioral research methodology through innovative research designs and theory-building strategies, with the ultimate goal of developing a deeper understanding of collective decision systems and how to design them effectively in various contexts. He is affiliated with the MIT Center for Computational Engineering, the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, and the MIT Connection Science Research Initiative.
Abdullah holds a PhD in computational science and engineering, as well as dual master's degrees in media arts and sciences (MIT Media Lab) and computational science and engineering from MIT. Prior to joining MIT, he earned his undergraduate degree from Southampton University in the United Kingdom.
Almaatouq, Abdullah, Mohammed Alsobay, Ming Yin, and Duncan J. Watts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Vol. 118, No. 36 (2021): e210106211. Download Paper.
Almaatouq, Abdullah, Alejandro Noriega-Campero, Abdulrahman Alotaibi, P.M. Krafft, Mehdi Moussaid, and Alex Pentland. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 117, No. 21 (2020): 11379-86. Download Paper.
Campero, Andres, Michelle Vaccaro, Jaeyoon Song, Haoran Wen, Abdullah Almaatouq, and Thomas W. Malone, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6798-22. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, 2022.
Almaatouq, Abdullah, M. Amin Rahimian, Jason W. Burton, and Abdulla Alhajri. Scientific Reports Vol. 12, (2022): 16546.
Almaatouq, Abdullah, Joshua Becker, James P. Houghton, Nicolas Paton, Duncan J. Watts, and Mark E. Whiting. Behavior Research Methods Vol. 53, No. 5 (2021): 2158-2171. Download Paper.
Noriega, Alejandro, Dalia Camacho, Daniela Meizner, Jennifer Enciso, Hugo Quiroz-Mercado, Virgilio Morales-Canton, Abdullah Almaatouq, and Alex Pentland. JMIR Informative Research Vol. 5, No. 8 (2021): e25290. Download Paper.
Leaders often have to decide whether to delegate projects to individuals or a group. According to a new study, it should depend on the task.
Is the saying true that two heads are better than one? A new study by Abdullah Almaatouq sheds light on this age-old debate. He found that the answer depends on the complexity of the task.
"Are two heads better than one? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth?"
A new study ... digs into the question of whether it's better for employees to work in teams or alone.