Group Cohesion, Attitude Projection, and Opinion Certainty: Beyond Interaction.

This experiment investigated the effects of group cohesiveness and estimations of consensus on opinion certainty. Members of high- or low-cohesive groups indicated their own attitude positions on 6 civic issues in a context removed from the task-oriented situation in which the groups were developed. Each person then estimated the positions of in-group or out-group members or participated in a no-projection control condition. As expected, estimation of the attitudes of either target group conferred opinion certainty onto cohesive members compared with levels found in the no-projection condition or among low-cohesive participants. Furthermore, perceptions that coworker input was facilitated and encouraged during group development mediated the effect of the experimental manipulation of cohesion on opinion certainty following attitude projection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)