I Believe You’re Right: The Effect of Confidence on Group Performance Outcomes

Previous research has shown that when making a decision, groups fail to incorporate information that is held by a single member prior to discussion (Stasser & Titus, 1985, 1987, 2003), and that groups tend to not repeat this information once it is mentioned (Stasser, Taylor, & Hanna, 1989). In this project, groups of three completed a collective memory task, in which members in one condition had the same information to remember whereas those in another condition had different information to remember, before completing a decision-making task. Information in the decision task was distributed among the members to create a hidden profile, in which unique information given to each of the members is necessary to make a correct decision. Those that had the same information to remember in the collective recall task repeated more of their information in the decision task, including unshared information. Across both conditions, the repetition of information predicted improved group decision making, although performance on the decision-making task did not differ between conditions. One possible explanation for this result is that when unique information was encountered in the decision task, it defied the expectations set up by the memory task in the groups that had been given all the same information to remember, and the attempts of those groups to adapt to the unique information resulted in increased repetition.