The power of collaboration: children do better

The article "In this group challenge, kindergartners beat the MBAs every time" by Daniel Coyle discusses an experiment where a group needs to build a tower as high as the can with the following material: Twenty pieces of uncooked spaghetti, One yard of transparent tape, One yard of string, One standard-size marshmallow. The marshmallow must come at the top. In dozens of trials, kindergartners built structures that averaged twenty-six inches tall, while business school students built structures that averaged less than ten inches. (Teams of kindergartners also defeated teams of lawyers [who built towers that averaged fifteen inches] as well as teams of CEOs [twenty-two inches]). The explanation of the article is that children are really collaborating while the adults are secretly also competing for status and navigating the resulting social minefield.