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)