ASSEMBLY BONUS EFFECT OR TYPICAL GROUP-PERFORMANCE - COMMENT

Michaelsen, Watson, and Black (1989) argued that, by using experienced groups working on relevant tasks with real rewards, they were able to demonstrate an assembly bonus effect (Collins & Guetzkow, 1964)-group performance that is better than the performance of any individual group member or any combination of individual member efforts. Using computer simulations based on Michaelsen et al's findings and some recent data collected under circumstances similar to those used by Michaelsen et al, we demonstrate that is highly unlikely that they found an assembly bonus effect and that their results are typical of those obtained in standard laboratory experiments on group problem solving.