Dd. Stewart et G. Stasser, THE SAMPLING OF CRITICAL, UNSHARED INFORMATION IN DECISION-MAKING GROUPS - THE ROLE OF AN INFORMED MINORITY, European journal of social psychology, 28(1), 1998, pp. 95-113
A collective information sampling model and observations of discussion
content suggest that decision-making groups often fail to disseminate
unshared information. This paper examines the role that a fully-infor
med minority may play in facilitating the sampling and consideration o
f unshared information. University students read a mystery and then me
t in four-person groups to discuss the case. When critical clues were
unshared among three members before discussion, a fully informed fourt
h member (informed minority) promoted the discussion of these critical
clues when participants thought the mystery had a demonstrably correc
t answer (solve set) but not when they thought the clue may have been
insufficient to solve definitively the case (judge set). None the less
, under both salve and judge sets, the informed minority increased the
likelihood that the group would identify the correct suspect. Social
combination, information sampling, and minority influence interpretati
ons of the results are discussed. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.