What would be the result of this experiment?

[motherjuggs&speed]

Okay, that was click bait-y, but I do have an experiment and I wonder what you all think.

Take a social group of 40-60 people, where everyone pretty much knows everybody. Ask each person to rank order the value of everyone in the group and to write a one line quick take on everyone. My thesis is: If you see one person's list you've seen everyone's. There will be no significant difference from one person's list to another's. Thoughts?

[syaigh]

I'd say the older they are the more likely you are to have significant deviation.

[nafod]

There’s been experience on groups rank ordering attractiveness, and that tends to be as you say. Further, if you put an equal number of men and women in a room and ask them to pair up, they tend to naturally pair by matched ranking.

But value?

If the social group has shared values, which are shared to some extent by everybody talking about each other and others not a part of the room in the first place...then I agree.

But you’ll probably get some who have awareness of the groupthink and come at it from left field.

Interesting question!

[Fat Cat]

If the group is short-term, they will rank principally by physical appearance due to the halo effect and the limited information people have to factor into their ranking. Over the long-term you will see greater variation in ranking, due to other experiences shaping their impressions.

[nafod]

If the group is short-term, they will rank principally by physical appearance due to the halo effect and the limited information people have to factor into their ranking. Over the long-term you will see greater variation in ranking, due to other experiences shaping their impressions.

I rank you last

heh

[Fat Cat]

MY MOM SAYS I'M VERY LIKEABLE!!1!

[Shapecharge]

Late to this thread...perhaps not quite the same thing as the original post but I believe some of the more high speed military schools do something like this. If any of the Rangers are still occasionally stopping by, perhaps they can weigh in.

[Sua Sponte]

At the end of each of the two RASP phases and each of the three phases of Ranger School, peer reviews are used as an evaluation tool to augment graded exercises and instructor assessments. The process is a bit different than what's being asked here. The students are seated in columns in a classroom and, in writing, must rate where they'd place each of the members of the squad in a 40-man platoon. The rub is each student must rate at least one of the squad members in the bottom ten of the platoon. Being rated in the bottom 10 is called being peered. Get peered by two or more squad members and you get boarded; a warning, a recycle or a course drop results. If the squad works well, each guy peers the guy behind him in the seating so nobody gets more than one. All it takes is for one student to break from that rule to board another student. Imperfect set-up as it allows students to conspire due to prior associations. Officers, West Pointers in particular, are often accused of this. Usually the peered student goes to another squad and finishes fine. If a guy gets three or, especially, more low peers from other students it's usually a sign he is a screw up or slacker and he'll usually get rolled or dropped. Rids the course of what are called "spotlight Rangers." Guys who are great when the RI's are around and a senseless waste of oxygen, otherwise.

Each year I have my executive staff and senior managers do 360 reviews amongst their peers. This is just feedback and is not used for performance evals, promotions or raises. Typically, for the good performing members of the team, they'll get a mix of scores from 3 to 5 on various metrics (scale of 5) from other executives or managers. There's often one person who rates him/herself around 5 in all areas and his/her peers at 2 and 3 on most all areas. In contrast, that person is rated low by all the other staffers. I can usually tell who these people are before even getting started. Occasionally, there's a surprise and that gets my attention. Ego is the killer for such people and ego also kills organizations. Like small combat units, one or two malfeasant members and it brings the whole organization down disproportionately.

[Sua Sponte]

To put my post above in perspective to the original question, the context is not primarily social; in both cases there is an interdependence of the people involved to achieve a favorable outcome. While this does not obviate political motives, likability influences, ulterior motives, etc. it does mitigate them greatly. While likability, for instance, might mitigate adverse opinions, if the person can't carry the burden, the team will eventually select them out. Maybe surprisingly, this is more true in high stress scenarios like Ranger School, where the sleep and food deprivation, and the constant effort by the instructors to make everything go wrong all the time, make mission accomplishment a higher driving imperative than even the workplace. In the workplace, people can still more easily manage perception, cavil, and create cabals.

Other obfuscating variables include how much people believe the evaluations will reman anonymous, how much they believe a certain outcome is a priori expected or anticipated, and the depth of day-to-day interactions between members of the group. Still, only those truly at the top and truly at the bottom will appear similarly placed on each person's list. Even then, there will be departures in unanimity.

[Sua Sponte]

Double

[motherjuggs&speed]

Thanks for those thoughts SS, I was hoping for something like that.

I didn't want to say this in the original post, but here's my belief, and I don't see how it's wrong. If a person is reviled enough by anyone (omitting those who are just dishonest or evil, someone with credibility), to me that says that that person can't be valued that much by anyone else in the community, and is unlikely to be valued very much by anyone. People have told me that it isn't that simple but I think it is. In my life, I can't think of any examples of a person who is disliked/thought little of by anyone (outside of some personal beef), but was thought well of by anyone else.