Topic 4: Group Decision Making

Front 1

Uniqueness

Back 1

How well are people pooling and utilising their distinct knowledge sets for a specific task

Front 2

Openness

Back 2

Any sharing of knowledge, whether it's common or distinct related to achieving goals, improving group cohesion etc

Front 3

Intellective tasks

Back 3

Have an objectively correct answer

Front 4

Judgemental tasks

Back 4

Require group consensus to achieve a correct answer

Front 5

Hidden profile tasks

Back 5

The optimal choice differs from each member's initial preference

it requires info sharing

Front 6

Nonhidden Profile tasks

Back 6

at least some individual can detect the correct answer based upon own info and preferences

Front 7

The 4 types of task

Back 7

1. Intellective hidden profile

2. Judgemental hidden profile

3. Intellective Nonhidden profile

4. Judgemental Nonhidden profile

Front 8

Result 1: Info Sharing and Team performance

Back 8

Info sharing positively predicts team performance

So sharing more info is always better

Front 9

Result 2: Uniqueness or Openness as a Better Predictor?

Back 9

Uniqueness is the better predictor

Because it's more related to the task at hand

Front 10

Result 3: Subjective, objective or decision effectiveness measures of performance?

Back 10

Subjective measures are the strongest predictors

Why? Because they are high in contamination (hold most irrelevant info) and low in deficiency (captures full spectrum of team performance)

Front 11

Result 4: What type of task is info sharing best for?

Back 11

Intellective hidden-profile tasks: where there is a right answer (i.e. it's not about group preferences), but no one actually knows what it is

Front 12

Result 5: Impact of discussion structure on uniqueness

Back 12

High discussion structure is best

with free-form discussion the impacts of uniqueness and openness on performance are roughly equal

Front 13

Result 6: impact of task demonstrability on info sharing

Back 13

If you can demonstrate that an outcome will be optimal (higher task demonstrability) then there will be more info sharing

Front 14

Result 7: impact of cooperative groups

Back 14

Cooperative groups are more cohesive so share more info

Front 15

Result 8: Impact of group homogeneity

Back 15

homogenous groups share more information

Front 16

Result 9: The impact of informational independence on info sharing

Back 16

The greater the number of initially correct group members, the more info sharing there is

an argument for having lots of experts in groups!

Front 17

Groups share the most info when they don't need to: why?

Back 17

they share more info when:

All members already know info (high informational independence)

Members are all capable of making correct decisions independently

groups are homogenous

Front 18

What types of groups SHOULD we have in the knowledge economy?

Back 18

We are all engaged in highly complex tasks

So we need:

specialised experts with unique info and perspectives who have dissimilar backgrounds (heterogeneity)

Front 19

Epistemic motivation

Back 19

The willingness to expend effort to achieve a thorough, rich & Accurate understanding of the world

Front 20

Social Motivation

Back 20

These are individual preferences for outcome distributions between yourself and group members

they influence how ideas are generated and how problems are solved

Front 21

Depth of information processing

Back 21

determined by your epistemic motivation

Front 22

Positive influences on epistemic motivation

Back 22

1. Need for cognition

2. openness to experience

3. accountability to process

4. Preference diversity of your group

5. the presence of strong minorities

6. Transformational leadership

Front 23

Negative influences of epistemic motivation

Back 23

1. Need for cognitive closure

2. time pressure

3. power preponderance

4. environmental noise

5. external threat

6. autocratic leadership

Front 24

Mixed-Motive Interdependence

Back 24

Team members are driven by a mix of shared and personal goals

Front 25

Interdependence theory

Back 25

Given a situation containing a mix of selfish and cooperative incentives we subjectively interpret the situation through the lens of our innate social preferences

Front 26

Direction of information search

Back 26

Influenced by social motivations

Front 27

advocacy

Back 27

You do this if you have pro-self preferences

You argue for your position like a lawyer

Front 28

lying and deception

Back 28

You do this if you are pro-self

You misrepresent your preferences and priorities to suit your own personal goals

Front 29

consequences of being pro-self

Back 29

1. Advocacy

2. Lying and deception

3. Spinning preference-consistent information

Front 30

Spinning Preference-Consistent Info

Back 30

People instantly develop ownership of their own ideas

Because they have invested time in them and also don't want to appear inconsistent

Front 31

consequences of being pro-social

Back 31

1. Self-censorship and mutual enhancement

2. Bias toward shared information

Front 32

Self-censorship and mutual enhancement

Back 32

associated with pro-social preferences

you value group harmony so you fail to share unique info if it disagrees with group preferences

so may be particularly relevant for judgemental tasks

Front 33

Bias towards shared information

Back 33

Pro-social people like to acknowledge competence

and people who talk about shared info are generally seen as more knowledgeable and competent

Front 34

consequences of LOW EPISTEMIC, PRO-SELF groups

Back 34

Freeriding: due to inaction and a tendency to withold effort

stalemates and indecision: due to inflexible opinions and a refusal to understand opinions of others

Front 35

Consequences of HIGH EPISTEMIC, PRO-SELF groups

Back 35

Forceful arguing of own points of view (they've spent a lot of time developing them)

Use strategies such as lying, advocacy, spinning of preferences

good for creative solutions: independent in thought and willing to be part of minority

Front 36

Consequences of LOW EPISTEMIC, PRO-SOCIAL groups

Back 36

groupthink

lazy compromises

Front 37

Consequences of HIGH EPISTEMIC, PRO-SOCIAL groups

Back 37

Willing to sacrifice group harmony for better decisions

info-driven interactions

enhance creativity by respecting others' ideas

Front 38

MODERATOR: time pressure

Back 38

epistemic motivation bad with decision urgency

Front 39

MODERATOR: group member input indispensibility

Back 39

with dispensible members we don't need as much info sharing and processing

Front 40

MIP-G Model

Back 40

individual level: social motivations and epistemic motivations influence ...

group level: ...Info dissemination & integration

Outcome: quality of group judgement and decisions

moderators: member input indispensibility and decision urgency