Group decision making and social influence: A social interaction sequence model.

Discusses the social interaction sequence (SIS) model, which represents the group decision-making process in terms of the sequential choice behavior—changes in preference and certainty—of group members. This model states that the probabilities of preference and certainty changes are related to the current distribution of opinion in the group. An application of the SIS model to a study of jury decision making (G. Strasser, 1977) is presented, and results of earlier empirical studies are predicted by a computer simulation version of the model. Shift and opinion change versions of the model are proposed, with both extensions incorporating the concept of a characteristic certainty distribution. Characteristic certainty distributions are used to examine the expected effects of group size and assigned-decision rule on members' confidence in a group's decision. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coordination success and interpersonal perceptions: Matching versus mismatching.

Coordination is an essential part of social functioning. The authors distinguish 2 types of coordination: matching and mismatching. In matching, coordination is successful if parties choose the same action. In mismatching, coordination is successful if people choose different actions. In 3 studies, the authors investigated the downstream social consequences of tacit coordination for interpersonal perceptions. In all studies, participants repeatedly choose between 2 bets with equivalent expected values, and payoffs increased either when they choose the same bet or when they choose different bets. In the 1st 2 studies, coordination success increased the perceptions of interpersonal similarity and liking when matching was required but not when mismatching was required. The authors' interpretation is that matching responses and coordination success had countervailing effects in the mismatching task. Also, percentage of matched responses did not affect perceptions when coordination was not required (Experiment 2). In 4 person teams, a frequently matching partner was viewed more favorably (smarter, more similar to self, and more liked) than were other teammates, even when mismatching increased payoffs (Experiment 3). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accountability and the discussion of unshared, critical information in decision-making groups.

Previous research has demonstrated that groups are more likely to discuss information shared by all group members than unshared information (G. M. Wittenbaum & G. Stasser, 1996). In the present study, it was hypothesized that groups may be less likely to overlook unshared information when they are held accountable to an audience outside the group for their decisions. University students read a murder mystery and then met in 3-person groups to select who they thought was most likely to have committed the crime. Contrary to hypotheses, the results showed that accountable groups were less likely to focus on unshared information than groups who were not held accountable because of an increased focus on irrelevant details by accountable groups. Implications for future research are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion.

Studied 4-member decision-making groups given information about 3 hypothetical candidates for student body president in unshared/consensus or shared or unshared/conflict conditions. 84 undergraduates participated in the unshared consensus condition, and 72 undergraduates participated in the other conditions. Results show that even though groups could have produced unbiased composites of the candidates through discussion, they decided in favor of the candidate initially preferred by a plurality rather than the most favorable candidate. Group members' pre- and postdiscussion recall of candidate attributes indicated that discussion tended to perpetuate, not to correct, members' distorted pictures of the candidates. It is suggested that unstructured discussion in the face of a consensus requirement may fail as a means of combining unique informational resources. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential Access to Information and Anticipated Group Interaction: Impact on Individual Reasoning.

Two studies examined the impact of relative differences in access to information and anticipated group interaction on individual reasoning. On 2 different reasoning tasks (P. C. Wason's [1966] selection task and D. Kahneman & A. Tversky's [1973] lawyer-engineer problem), participants sensing that they knew more in anticipation of group interaction or knew less when not anticipating interaction were less susceptible to typical cognitive biases demonstrated by these tasks. Study 2 also showed that the effect of these social contexts was contingent on the task presentation format. Thus, knowing more in anticipation of group interaction and knowing less when not anticipating group interaction seemingly compensated for task features that enhance suboptimal reasoning strategies. These results illustrate the importance of the social context in which reasoning is situated and are discussed in terms of cognitive tuning, social comparison, and social motivations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discovery of hidden profiles by decision-making groups: Solving a problem versus making a judgment.

An information-sampling model proposed by G. Stasser and W. Titus (1985, 1987) and observations of discussion content (Stasser et al, 1989) suggest that face-to-face discussions often fail to disseminate unshared information. However, groups may be less prone to overlooking unshared information if they believe that their task has a demonstrably correct answer (P. R. Laughlin, 1980). University students read a murder mystery and then met in groups to discuss the case. Groups believed they had either sufficient (solve set) or insufficient (judge set) evidence to determine the guilty suspect. When critical clues were unshared before discussion, 67% of solve, but only 35% of judge, groups identified the guilty suspect. Discussion content analyses show that solve groups focused more on the critical clues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expert role assignment and information sampling during collective recall and decision making.

Previous research has found that decision-making groups do not effectively pool unshared information. This study examined how personal expertise facilitates the mentioning and validation of unshared information in collective recall and decision-making groups by increasing members' awareness of who holds what types of information. Assigned expertise increased substantially the proportion of unshared information mentioned during both collective recall and decision-making tasks. Two results supported the hypothesis that assigned expertise provides validation for the recall of unshared information. When expertise was assigned, (1) more of the unshared information mentioned during the recall task was retained on the collectively endorsed written protocol, and (2) unshared information that was mentioned in discussion was more likely to be correctly recognized by members after group interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)