Six Thinking Hats

Biological Parallel

Six Thinking Hats structures cognitive diversity—different perspectives on the same problem. Scout bees demonstrate this: individual scouts assess potential hive sites using different criteria (cavity volume, entrance size, sun exposure, predator risk), return to the hive, and perform waggle dances encoding their assessments. The swarm integrates multiple independent evaluations before committing to a decision. Cognitive diversity improves collective intelligence when: (1) individuals assess independently, (2) criteria are diverse, (3) integration mechanisms exist. Groupthink—everyone using the same 'hat'—produces correlated errors and poor decisions.