INFORMATION SALIENCE AND THE DISCOVERY OF HIDDEN PROFILES BY DECISION-MAKING GROUPS - A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Simulations using the DISCUSS model of group decision making assessed the impact of having highly salient unshared information on groups' discovery of hidden profiles. A hidden profile exists when group members individually receive only part of the information favoring a superior decision alternative, but the group collectively can pool this unshared information to identify the superior option. Stasser and Titus (1985, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1476-1478) found that their groups often failed to pool unshared information and did not discover the option supported by their collective knowledge. The simulation results demonstrated that this failure will likely occur across various group sizes and information loads. Moreover, advocacy during discussion interferes with the discovery of a hidden profile. Enhancing the salience of unshared information had relatively little impact except for smaller (four-person) groups whose members adopted an impartial, fact-finding approach (nonadvocacy) to discussion. Also, making unshared information salient when members received the information before discussion was more critical than making it salient when items were selected for discussion. © 1992.