S u m m a r y

 

Hakkarainen K (2003)

Collective intelligence

Psykologia 38:384-401. Vammala ISSN 0355-1067.

 

The purpose of the present article is to introduce psychological and sociocultural approaches that examine the collective nature of human intelligent activity. The author searches for an alternative to the traditional view which conceptualizes intelligence in terms of momentary (short-term) mental processes within the individual human mind. Various forms of collective intelligence are discussed, such as intelligence embodied in tools and environments of activity, vehicles of external representation, transactive and collective memory, social collaboration and the collective mind, and intelligence embodied in social practices. It is concluded that collective, inter-individual processes have a crucial role in human intelligent activity. The author concludes that collective forms of intelligent activity should not be seen as mystic, superindividual entities; rather, he conceives all human intelligence to be cultural-historically mediated and understands such forms of activity to be sociocultural systems with emergent characteristics that cannot be reduced to individual attributes.

 

Key words: Collective intelligence, distributed cognition, transactive memory, collective mind, activity system

 

Kai Hakkarainen, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Po.B. 9, Fin-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.