SOCIOCOGNITION IN WORK GROUPS - THE EVOLUTION OF GROUP INTEGRATIVE COMPLEXITY AND ITS RELATION TO TASK-PERFORMANCE

The study described in this article examined the integrative complexit y of shared conceptualizations of group culture: how they can be disti nguished from member cognitions about group culture and how they affec t task performance over time. Twenty-two work groups wrote weekly essa ys about their collective activity over a 12-week period. Group member s first wrote independent accounts and then collaborated to create a s ingle group account of their activity during that week. During the fir st 5 weeks of that period, the integrative complexity of group essays was not significantly different from that of average individual essays but was significantly lower than that Of essays written by the highes t complexity members. During the last 5 weeks, the level of group comp lexity increased at a greater rate than either the average or highest individual levels, until it was significantly greater than that of the average individual and statistically equivalent to that of the highes t member. The results also supported the notion that the relation of i ntegrative complexity-at the group level-to the quality of decision ou tcomes depends on the nature of the task. Taken as a whole, these find ings support the developing notion that thoughts and ideas can be conc eived as collective, rather than purely individual, phenomena.