Garold Stasser

Hidden Profiles: A Brief History

Somebody once asked “Why is it that when peoplesay ‘that’s a good question’ they never have a good an-swer?” In response to the query of how we came to dothis work, “good question” was indeed our own re-sponse, and as such we cannot promise to have a goodanswer. In spite of the irony that this exercise poses forus, who insist on a healthy distrust of introspectiveanalysis, in this article we hope to communicate themany pleasures of our collaborative effort, the degreeto which we are indebted to our critics, and the recog-nition that the larger understanding of implicit socialcognition involves many others who constitute an inte-gral part of this discovery.Gollwitzer and Kinney (1989) proposed the following hypothesis: People who ponder a goal decision (i.e., to either pursue Goal A or B, or to pursue either Goal A or stay passive) develop a deliberative mind-set that allows them to accurately assess whether a desired outcome can be controlled by their actions or not, whereas people who are planning the pursuit of a chosen goal develop a mind-set that fosters illusionary optimism with respect to controlling this outcome. Deviating from the usual course of presentation, I start with describing how we tested this hypothesis and with what results. As we are dealing with a set of studies classified as an overlooked gem, it seems appropriate to first describe the research and its findings. Then I turn to my recollection of how we arrived at this hypothesis. Finally, I address the implications of the Gollwitzer and Kinney findings and how they keep stimulating present research on self-regulation.Given the honor of collectively constructing an origin story for our work on culture and self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), a few strands of narrative consistently appear. These include travel, conversation, collaboration, and a growing appreciation of diversity in modes of being. As we have become increasingly aware of the dynamic interdependencies between psychological tendencies and the sociocultural, sociostructural, and sociohistorical situations and contexts in which these tendencies occur, we find that we have become really social social psychologists. And it is our transformation into really social social psychologists and our realization of the fully social nature of the self and the mind that stands out for us.

Computer simulation as a research tool: The DISCUSS model of group decision making ☆

Abstract Computer simulation is a useful means of representing and articulating social psychological theory. It is particularly useful for integrating separate theoretical propositions about human behavior into a single functioning model of social interaction. The DISCUSS model illustrates how theoretical ideas about individual recall and integration of information can be combined to yield a model of group discussion and decision making. By simulating information flow during discussion, the model accounted for the findings of Stasser and Titus (1985) . They demonstrated that groups frequently fail to discover that their collective knowledge favors one alternative when their individually held information favors another. Moreover, model simulations suggested that this failure can occur even when members do not bias their contributions to discussion in order to support their preferences. Finally, the DISCUSS model was used to explore the impact of minorities on information sampling during discussion.

The sampling of critical, unshared information in decision‐making groups: the role of an informed minority

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-informed minority may play in facilitating the sampling and consideration of unshared information. University students read a mystery and then met in four-person groups to discuss the case. When critical clues were unshared among three members before discussion, a fully informed fourth member (informed minority) promoted the discussion of these critical clues when participants thought the mystery had a demonstrably correct 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 solve and judge sets, the informed minority increased the likelihood that the group would identify the correct suspect. Social combination, information sampling, and minority influence interpretations of the results are discussed.

The Influence of Time and Task Demonstrability on Decision-Making in Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Groups

Decision-making groups tend to favor the introduction and use of shared over unshared information, often leading teams to make suboptimal decisions. This study examined the influence of time (restricted vs. ample) and perceptions of task demonstrability (solve vs. judge) on information sampling and decision quality in computer-mediated and face-to-face groups. Three-person face-to-face and computer-mediated groups were asked to read about a fictional murder investigation and to determine which of the three suspects was the guilty individual. The results indicated that the computer-mediated groups, who were given a solve set of instructions and ample time to discuss the task, had the highest solution rates. Analyses of the computer-mediated discussion logs indicated that the solve groups who were given extended time repeated and recalled more unshared information.

Differential access to information and anticipated group interaction: impact on individual reasoning.

Two studies examined the impact of relative differences in access to information and anticipated group interaction on individual reasoning. On 2 different reasoning tasks (P. C. Wasons [1966] selection task and D. Kahneman & A. Tverskys [1973] lawyer-engineer problem), participants sensing that they knew more in anticipation of group interaction or knew less when not anticipating interaction were less susceptible to typical cognitive biases demonstrated by these tasks. Study 2 also showed that the effect of these social contexts was contingent on the task presentation format. Thus, knowing more in anticipation of group interaction and knowing less when not anticipating group interaction seemingly compensated for task features that enhance suboptimal reasoning strategies. These results illustrate the importance of the social context in which reasoning is situated and are discussed in terms of cognitive tuning, social comparison, and social motivations.

Conflict and Coordination in the Provision of Public Goods: A Conceptual Analysis of Continuous and Step-Level Games:

Conflicts between individual and collective interests are ubiquitous in social life. Experimental studies have investigated the resolution of such conflicts using public goods games with either continuous or step-level payoff functions. Game theory and social interdependence theory identify consequential differences between these two types of games. Continuous function games are prime examples of social dilemmas because they always contain a conflict between individual and collective interests, whereas step-level games can be construed as social coordination games. Step-level games often provide opportunities for coordinated solutions that benefit both the collective and the individuals. For this and other reasons, the authors conclude that one cannot safely generalize results obtained from step-level to continuous-form games (or vice versa). Finally, the authors identify specific characteristics of the payoff function in public goods games that conceptually mark the transition from a pure dilemma to a coordination problem nested within a dilemma.

Information flow and influence in collective choice

If decision-relevant information is distributed among team members, the group is inclined to focus on common information and to neglect unique information. This classical finding is robust in experimental settings, in which the distribution of information is created by experimental design. The current paper examines information sharing when access to information is not restricted. We analyzed archival search and discussion data obtained from business executives completing a personnel selection exercise. Information popularity in the population from which groups were composed predicted both the number of group members accessing items during information searches and whether the group discussed the items. The number of group members who accessed an item predicted whether information was repeated during discussion, and repetition predicted which items were included on an executive summary. Moreover, cognitively central group members were more influential than cognitively peripheral members. One implication is that collective information search and discussion highlights information that is perceived as relevant in the population from which groups are composed.