I'm open to the idea that the factors informing group performance might not be identical to those informing individual performance, and it seems plausible that intra-group communication could play a strong role in that, but this is a result suspiciously amenable to the NYT's politics. Probably deserves a grain or two of salt.
You have probably actually heard of this study already - it was in the news briefly when the Science article got published in 2010, this is just a rehash.
Anyhow, to some extent this is factor analysis smoke and mirrors - just because there's this nice factor that correlates well with performance on group tasks doesn't mean that the causal mechanism doesn't go through cognitive skills. This is especially obvious in the case of gender, where it seems implausible that women improve average performance just by exuding some sort of aura. They probably do it by ...
It is the beginning of a new year, and time for the beginning of a new rationality quotes thread.
The rules are: