Quality of decision making and group norms.

Two studies investigated the impact of group norms for maintaining consensus versus norms for critical thought on group decisions in a modification of the biased sampling paradigm (G. Stasser & W. Titus, 1985). Both studies showed that critical norms improved the quality of decisions, whereas consensus norms did not. This effect appeared to be mediated by the perceived value of shared and unshared information: Consensus norm groups valued shared information more highly than critical groups did, and valence was a good predictor of decision outcome. In addition, the 2nd study showed that the group norm manipulation has no impact on individual decisions, consistent with the assumption that this is a group effect. Results suggest that the content of group norms is an important factor influencing the quality of group decision-making processes and that the content of group norms may be related to the group's proneness for groupthink. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Four techniques of group decision making under uncertainty.

4 techniques of group decision-making—authoritarian, leader suggestion, census, and chairman—under risk and uncertainty were compared using a survival situation with 45 aircrews. "1. In a conflict situation, when a group discussion method… is involved, the members' reactions to the alternatives are relatively undifferentiated in contrast to the condition in which the leader alone makes the decision… . 2… . the groups appear to be least favorably disposed toward the authoritarian technique of decision-making… . 3. When the decision-making procedure is group centered the group reaches a decision involving greater personal risk to the members." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Volunteering and the recall of interrupted tasks.

It was hypothesized that the proportion of interrupted tasks recalled would be greatest among volunteers serving by choice and least among draftees not willing to volunteer, with draftees who had been willing to volunteer falling between the 2. Within each of these 3 groups those given task orienting instructions were expected to recall greater proportions of interrupted tasks than those given ego orienting instructions. College students divided into 6 groups of 16 Ss each in a 3 X 2 factorial design were tested individually using the standard Zeigarnik procedure. The results conformed to expectations although the differences among the volunteering groups were small. It was argued that differences in degree of task involvement and ego involvement account for these results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does the Stepladder Technique improve group decision making? A series of failed replications.

Past research has demonstrated the effectiveness of a structured group decision-making technique, termed the Stepladder Technique, in improving group decisions. The purpose of the present series of studies was to replicate and extend this research. Five studies (three using different tasks than previous studies and two using the same task) compared the decision quality of groups using the self-paced Stepladder Technique to unstructured groups. In all studies, stepladder groups failed to perform better than unstructured groups. This failure to replicate and extend past research suggests that there are definite boundaries, such as the sample or the experimenter, which may limit the overall effectiveness of the Stepladder Technique. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnic diversity and distributed information in group decision making: The importance of information elaboration.

Ethnic diversity may impede groups' use of distributed information in decision making. This is not so much because diversity interferes with groups' ability to reach agreement, but because ethnic diversity may disrupt the elaboration (exchange and integration) of distributed information. The authors find evidence for this proposition in an experiment (N = 63 groups) in which ethnically diverse groups are shown to benefit more from instructions emphasizing information integration than ethnically homogeneous groups when dealing with distributed information, whereas neither ethnic diversity nor information integration instruction affected decision making performance in groups with fully shared information. These effects were mediated by a behavioral measure of group information elaboration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On racial diversity and group decision making: Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations.

This research examines the multiple effects of racial diversity on group decision making. Participants deliberated on the trial of a Black defendant as members of racially homogeneous or heterogeneous mock juries. Half of the groups were exposed to pretrial jury selection questions about racism and half were not. Deliberation analyses supported the prediction that diverse groups would exchange a wider range of information than all-White groups. This finding was not wholly attributable to the performance of Black participants, as Whites cited more case facts, made fewer errors, and were more amenable to discussion of racism when in diverse versus all-White groups. Even before discussion, Whites in diverse groups were more lenient toward the Black defendant, demonstrating that the effects of diversity do not occur solely through information exchange. The influence of jury selection questions extended previous findings that blatant racial issues at trial increase leniency toward a Black defendant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Considerations in the analysis of group tasks.

The transition of research in the area of small-group behavior from survey techniques to the more precise laboratory investigations has resulted in a shift in emphasis to group processes and a relative disinterest in analyzing the tasks which govern behavior. "The major purpose of the present report is to propose a paradigm that may be useful in preliminary attempts to isolate and define important group-task characteristics." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information sampling and group decision making: The effects of an advocacy decision procedure and task experience.

Group discussions tend to focus on information that was previously known by all members (shared information) rather than information known by only 1 member (unshared information). If the shared information implies a suboptimal alternative, this sampling bias is associated with inaccurate group decisions. The present study examines the impact of 2 factors on information exchange and decision quality: (a) an advocacy group decision procedure versus unstructured discussion and (b) task experience. Results show that advocacy groups discussed both more shared and unshared information than free-discussion groups. Further, with increasing experience, more unshared information was mentioned in advocacy groups. In contrast, there was no such increase in unstructured discussions. Yet advocacy groups did not significantly improve their decision quality with experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Team reflexivity, development of shared task representations, and the use of distributed information in group decision making.

Decision-making groups often exchange and integrate distributed information to a lesser extent than is desirable for high-quality decisions. One important reason for this lies in group members’ understanding of the decision task—their task representations—specifically the extent to which they understand the importance of exchange and integration of information. The authors hypothesized that a group’s development of a (shared) understanding of the information elaboration requirements of their task is influenced by collective reflection on the task. When not all group members initially realize the importance of information elaboration, team reflexivity increases the degree to which the group understands the importance of information elaboration. In an experiment, the authors showed that team reflection fostered the development of task representations emphasizing information elaboration and subsequent information elaboration and decision quality. When all members initially already held representations emphasizing information elaboration, team reflection promoted elaboration and performance to a lesser degree. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Amount of participation, coalescence, and profitability of decision making discussions.

51 groups of 255 ROTC cadets, varying in motivation and stratification, were examined in groups of 5 as they discussed the correct rankings of the familiarity of words. Measures of time talked, coalescence, and profit from discussion were collected on each of 10 problems solved by each group. Where members were equal in status, much participation was associates with increased decision accuracy, particularly when members were highly motivated; but the converse was true when groups were stratified, particularly where they were also unmotivated. Coalescence was associated with increased accuracy of decisions in moderately motivated groups, and in unstratified groups. Individual attempts to lead were more likely to be successful where members were motivated and where members varied in status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Democracy under uncertainty: The wisdom of crowds and the free-rider problem in group decision making.

We introduce a game theory model of individual decisions to cooperate by contributing personal resources to group decisions versus by free riding on the contributions of other members. In contrast to most public-goods games that assume group returns are linear in individual contributions, the present model assumes decreasing marginal group production as a function of aggregate individual contributions. This diminishing marginal returns assumption is more realistic and generates starkly different predictions compared to the linear model. One important implication is that, under most conditions, there exist equilibria where some, but not all, members of a group contribute, even with completely self-interested motives. An agent-based simulation confirmed the individual and group advantages of the equilibria in which behavioral asymmetry emerges from a game structure that is a priori perfectly symmetric for all agents (all agents have the same payoff function and action space but take different actions in equilibria). A behavioral experiment demonstrated that cooperators and free riders coexist in a stable manner in groups performing with the nonlinear production function. A collateral result demonstrated that, compared to a dictatorial decision scheme guided by the best member in a group, the majority/plurality decision rules can pool information effectively and produce greater individual net welfare at equilibrium, even if free riding is not sanctioned. This is an original proof that cooperation in ad hoc decision-making groups can be understood in terms of self-interested motivations and that, despite the free-rider problem, majority/plurality decision rules can function robustly as simple, efficient social decision heuristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of depression on social economic decision making.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 119(3) of Journal of Abnormal Psychology (see record 2010-15289-020). In the article, the last revision received date printed on the final page of the article was incorrect due to an error in the production process. The correct publication dates are as follows: Received April 14, 2009; Revision received November 6, 2009; Accepted November 9, 2009.] Although the role of emotion in social economic decision making has been increasingly recognized, the impact of mood disorders, such as depression, on such decisions has been surprisingly neglected. To address this gap, 15 depressed and 23 nondepressed individuals completed a well-known economic task, in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Although depressed individuals reported a more negative emotional reaction to unfair offers, they accepted significantly more of these offers than did controls. A positive relationship was observed in the depressed group, but not in controls, between acceptance rates of unfair offers and resting cardiac vagal control, a physiological index of emotion regulation capacity. The discrepancy between depressed individuals' increased emotional reactions to unfair offers and their decisions to accept more of these offers contrasts with recent findings that negative mood in nondepressed individuals can lead to lower acceptance rates. This suggests distinct biasing processes in depression, which may be related to higher reliance on regulating negative emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some effects of varying combinations of group members on group performance measures and leadership behaviors.

This experiment tests whether individuals contribute differently to the group product depending on the other individuals with whom they are assembled. "This assembly effect on the group end-product is clearly distinguished from the contribution attributable to each individual of the group, considered separately." By using the Ball-and-Spiral Apparatus as a group task, this assembly effect was found significant, for the two experimental measures used, at the .05 and .08 levels. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research on assembly effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of anticipatory stress on decision making in a gambling task.

Recent research has highlighted the fact that emotion that is intrinsic to a task benefits decision making. The authors tested the converse hypothesis, that unrelated emotion disrupts decision making. Participants played the Iowa Gambling Task, during which only experimental participants anticipated giving a public speech (A. Bechara, D. Tranel, & H. Damasio, 2000). Experimental participants who were anticipating the speech learned the contingencies of the choices more slowly, and there was a gender interaction later in the game, with stressed female participants having more explicit knowledge and more advantageous performance and stressed male participants having poorer explicit knowledge and less advantageous performance. Effects of anticipatory stress on decision making are complex and depend on both the nature of the task and the individual. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impacts on decision making of executives: Probabilities versus outcomes.

The determinants of decision making of executives are of special interest for companies. For a long time choices have been investigated based on theories that assume an equal impact of expected outcomes and expected probabilities (Von Neumann and Morgenstern 1953, Savage 1954, Kahneman and Tversky 1979). The influence of probabilities in decision processes is, however, questioned by a growing body of research (Rottenstreich and Kivetz 2006, Shapira 1995, March and Shapira 1987, 1992). To monitor the information acquisition process of board members and high-ranking executives in the German insurance industry we conducted 51 personal interviews, which included computer-aided simulations. These simulations clearly and objectively support former statements of executives (Shapira 1995) that they focus more on the amount of decision outcomes than on the corresponding probabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological defenses and "ego strength" in the recall of completed and incompleted tasks.

"The results of this study indicate: (a) ego strength is directly related to the tendency to recall relatively more incompleted than completed tasks when the situation is not objectively self-esteem threatening, and inversely related to this tendency when the situation does objectively threaten self-esteem." Scores on the hysteria and psychasthenia scales of the MMPI are discussed in relation to the recall of completed and incompleted tasks and the self-esteem threatening or non-threatening character of the situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group decision making in hidden profile situations: Dissent as a facilitator for decision quality.

The effect of diversity in individual prediscussion preferences on group decision quality was examined in an experiment in which 135 three-person groups worked on a personnel selection case with 4 alternatives. The information distribution among group members constituted a hidden profile (i.e., the correct solution was not identifiable on the basis of the members' individual information and could be detected only by pooling and integrating the members' unique information). Whereas groups with homogeneous suboptimal prediscussion preferences (no dissent) hardly ever solved the hidden profile, solution rates were significantly higher in groups with prediscussion dissent, even if none of these individual prediscussion preferences were correct. If dissent came from a proponent of the correct solution, solution rates were even higher than in dissent groups without such a proponent. The magnitude of dissent (i.e., minority dissent or full diversity of individual preferences) did not affect decision quality. The beneficial effect of dissent on group decision quality was mediated primarily by greater discussion intensity and to some extent also by less discussion bias in dissent groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ego strength and the recall of tasks.

"A study was made of the relation between selected Rorschach factors believed to measure ego strength and recall preferences obtained from a modified interruption-of-tasks procedure… Recall ratios for the group (of Ss) as a whole did not reveal any preference, either for completed or for interrupted tasks." Two Rorschach factors, M greater than FM, and A%, correlated slightly with the recall ratios in a manner which supported the hypothesis that strong egos will recall mostly interrupted tasks and weak egos will recall completed tasks. F + % of 80 to 90 correlated with the recall data in a manner opposite to the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple-reason decision making based on automatic processing.

It has been repeatedly shown that in decisions under time constraints, individuals predominantly use noncompensatory strategies rather than complex compensatory ones. The authors argue that these findings might be due not to limitations of cognitive capacity but instead to limitations of information search imposed by the commonly used experimental tool Mouselab (J. W. Payne, J. R. Bettman, & E. J. Johnson, 1988). The authors tested this assumption in 3 experiments. In the 1st experiment, information was openly presented, whereas in the 2nd experiment, the standard Mouselab program was used under different time limits. The results indicate that individuals are able to compute weighted additive decision strategies extremely quickly if information search is not restricted by the experimental procedure. In a 3rd experiment, these results were replicated using more complex decision tasks, and the major alternative explanations that individuals use more complex heuristics or that they merely encode the constellation of cues were ruled out. In sum, the findings challenge the fundaments of bounded rationality and highlight the importance of automatic processes in decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distributions of caregiving tasks among family members: The place of gender and availability.

To extend family-oriented approaches to caregiving, participants in 2 studies were asked to distribute tasks among a set of adult children, first with information only about gender and then with systematically varied information about commitments to paid work, marriage, and/or parenting. Making the distributions, using a computer-based program, were 2 groups of older adults (ages 60 to 90 years). In Study 1, gender composition was kept constant (2 sons and 2 daughters). In Study 2, it was varied. The results showed several ways in which people combine attention to gender and to availability. The results also pointed to the need to consider both the number and type of tasks allocated. The results are discussed in terms of implications for the way caregiving is regarded, the development of multiple-factor models for variations among family members, and the possible replications and extensions to other circumstances and populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)