THE IMPACT OF GROUP-SIZE AND PROPORTION OF SHARED INFORMATION ON THE EXCHANGE AND INTEGRATION OF INFORMATION IN GROUPS

Hidden profiles exist when individual group members hold all the infor mation favoring one decision alternative but only a subset of the info rmation favoring another alternative. Given a hidden profile, group me mbers often fail to exchange information completely and consequently m ake poor decisions. Circumstances in which groups perform poorly are w orrisome because groups frequently are asked to make decisions. Condit ions that improve group performance on hidden profiles were sought. Gr oup information sharing and decision-making effectiveness were found t o be higher in small groups with a low percentage of shared informatio n, and lower when groups either were large or shared a high percentage of information (N = 80 groups). Greater information sharing, however did not correlate with longer discussions. The proportion of shared in formation affected bolstering and discounting of information. Qualitat ive observations of group behavior are presented, and the implications of the results for information sharing and decision making are discus sed.