TIME ALLOCATION IN DECISION-MAKING GROUPS

This study investigated the impact of issue importance, decision diffi culty, and agenda position on allocation of time to decision making ta sks. Ninety-one college student subjects were assigned to 24 small gro ups. Each group made four decisions created by crossing easy and diffi cult decisions concerning important and trivial issues, Results indica ted that more time was spent making difficult decisions than easy deci sions. More time was spent on important than trivial decisions for onl y one of the two decision tasks used in this study A negative correlat ion between agenda position and time spent on the decision indicated t hat more time was allocated to items with early agenda positions. Disc ussion emphasized that decision making groups do not allocate time in a purely rational manner.