Mutual enhancement: Toward an understanding of the collective preference for shared information

Groups tend to discuss and repeat information known by all members (shared) more than they do information known by one member (unshared). One factor t hat may influence this effect is the tendency for members to positively eva luate one another when mentioning shared information. Three experiments dem onstrated this "mutual enhancement" effect. Experiment I showed that mutual enhancement was related to participants' and their partners' exchanging th e same pieces of information. Experiment 2 illustrated that mutual enhancem ent was not related to the extent that participants liked partners or saw t hem as having similar opinions. Experiment 3 showed mutual enhancement in f ace-to-face dyads that discussed shared information. A combined analysis ac ross the 3 experiments showed the robustness of mutual enhancement. Implica tions of mutual enhancement for group discussion are considered.