Sandra G. L. Schruijer

The Effects of Groups' Variety and Disparity on Groups' Cognitive Complexity

This study examined the influence of group diversity conceptualized as disparity and as variety on group cognitive complexity. Data on individual cognitive complexity and group cognitive complexity were collected in 44 groups using a conceptual mapping technique. Also data on the quality of teamwork processes and satisfaction were collected using an individual questionnaire. The results indicate that (a) gender variety has a positive impact on group cognitive complexity, (b) cognitive disparity has a negative impact on group cognitive complexity, and (c) groups with a high average individual cognitive complexity have the highest cognitive complexity as a group only if the quality of their interactions is high.

Decision Styles and Rationality: An Analysis of the Predictive Validity of the General Decision-Making Style Inventory.

This study investigates the relationship between the five decision-making styles evaluated by the General Decision-Making Style Inventory, indecisiveness, and rationality in decision making. Using a sample of 102 middle-level managers, the results show that the rational style positively predicts rationality in decision making and negatively predicts indecisiveness, whereas the avoidant style positively predicts indecisiveness.

Normative interventions, emergent cognition and decision rationality in ad hoc and established groups

Purpose – As normative interventions (NIs) have been claimed to be effective in improving decision quality in groups, the aim of the paper is to address the effectiveness of NIs in ad hoc and established groups across several task domains.Design/methodology/approach – Three experimental studies were conducted to test the effects of NIs on collective cognition, group rationality, and decision quality.Findings – The first experimental study (58 groups) compared the effects of NIs on the emergence of group level cognitive structures. The results show that NIs lead to higher group cognitive complexity in established rather than in ad hoc groups. The second study tests the effects of NIs on group rationality (as emergent group competence) in a sample of 40 established groups and shows that NIs have synergic effects and foster group rationality. In the third study the insights of the first two studies are extended to a more realistic decision task performed by groups of managers. The results of the last study s...

Socially rejected while cognitively successful? The impact of minority dissent on groups' cognitive complexity.

The impact of minority dissent on group-level outcomes is explained in the current literature by two opposing mechanisms: first, through cognitive gains due to a profound change induced by minority members in the individual cognitions of the majority members, and second, through socio-affective process losses due to social rejection and relationship conflict. Groups are most effective in information processing if they succeed in solving this opposition and reduce the negative impact of process losses. The present study addresses this opposition using an experimental design in which we crossed minority dissent (presence vs. absence of minority dissent) with change in membership (groups with vs. groups without change in membership) to determine which condition leads to the highest group cognitive complexity. Our results show that groups with a history of dissent and where the deviant left the group have the highest cognitive complexity, followed by groups that experienced dissent and where no change in group membership took place. The groups without a history of dissent have the lowest cognitive complexity.

Whatever happened to the ‘European’ in European social psychology? A study of the ambitions in founding the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology

This article studies the ambitions involved in founding the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology (EAESP) in the context of a differentiation between social psychology practised in Europe on the one hand and the United States on the other. To this end 8 key actors have been interviewed: 4 members of the very first Executive Committee (or Planning Committee as it was called then) as well as 4 key players of a second generation. Also the EAESP’s archives have been consulted. Moreover, data regarding the developments of EAESP’s membership and EAESP’s house journal, the European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP), were used to assess to what extent the ambitions in developing a European social psychology have been realized. The conclusion is that, despite various successes, it remains questionable whether the founders’ aims have been fulfilled.

Looking at the gap between social psychological and psychodynamic perspectives on group dynamics historically

Purpose – The paper aims to describe and understand the gap between the psychodynamic literature on groups and the social psychological perspective on group dynamics. Design/methodology/approach – As Wilfred Bion is the most influential group dynamics representative of the psychodynamic tradition the authors performed a citation analysis of Bions work to find out whether it influenced the social psychological research on group dynamics. They compared three domains of literature: therapy/clinical, management/organization studies and social psychology. Moreover, they depict (by drawing on interviews with European pioneers in social psychology) the historical context in which European social psychology developed to explain the gap between the psychodynamic and social psychological approaches in the study of group dynamics. Findings – The results clearly indicate the existence of a gap between the social psychological and psychodynamic perspectives on group dynamics. Moreover, the authors show that Bion did ...

Do Women Want to Break the Glass Ceiling? A Study of Their Career Orientations and Gender Identity in the Netherlands**

Career orientations, career success and perceived self-efficacy of women employees in relation to their gender identity were studied. It was hypothesized that gender identity is related to career orientations such that women with a masculine gender identity strive for more upward mobility as compared to women with a feminine gender identity, whereas the latter strive more for balancing work and private life. A masculine gender identity was furthermore predicted to be positively related to career success in terms of income and hierarchical position. Finally it was expected that women with a feminine gender identity, in comparison to those with a masculine gender identity, express a lower self-efficacy with respect to stereotypical male and gender-neutral tasks and equal self-efficacy with respect to stereotypical feminine tasks. To test the hypotheses, a questionnaire was distributed among women working for a large multinational corporation. The results provided support for the first two hypotheses. Mixed support was obtained for the third hypothesis.

Minority Dissent and Social Acceptance in Collaborative Learning Groups

The main aim of this paper is to test the extent to which social acceptance moderates the impact of minority dissent on group cognitive complexity (GCC). We hypothesize that divergent views expressed by a minority increase GCC especially when the group climate is open to divergent contributions (e.g., a socially accepting group climate). We also hypothesize that group size has a non-linear association with GCC in such a way that GCC increases as group size increases from low to average and then GCC decreases as group size further increases from average to high. We test these hypotheses in a sample of 537 students (258 women, with an average age of 23.35) organized in 92 groups that have worked together in the same group throughout the semester, and show that: (1) group size has a decreasing positive association with GCC, (2) both minority dissent and social acceptance are beneficial for GCC and (3) groups with the highest GCC are those that experience minority dissent and develop a socially accepting climate (in which group members can equally participate to the task), allowing the majority to process the dissenting views extensively.

The Meaning of Collaboration: A Study Using a Conceptual Mapping Technique

In this study we investigate lay peoples conceptualization of collaboration. We used a card-sorting variant of a conceptual mapping technique to explore the way in which individuals and groups understand collaboration. First an interview and a free association technique were used to identify the main concepts used to define collaboration by a sample of 80 students. Afterwards, a sample of 56 students (with an average age of 20.94, fifty women) participated first in an individual and then in a group (of 3 and 4 members) cognitive mapping session in exchange for extra-credits for a Social Psychology course. After the completion of every cognitive mapping task, a post hoc questionnaire was used to evaluate: satisfaction with outcome and with the process, task difficulty, task intelligibility, conflict, individual participation to the group outcome, communication, collaboration, planning, organizing, process efficiency, as well as perceived difference between the group and individual outcomes was filled in after the group map was completed. Our results show that the complexity of individual cognitive maps is significantly higher than the complexity of group cognitive maps. Teamwork quality moderates the relation between the individual map complexity and group map complexity.

The Difference Between 'True Christian Enlightenment and Obscurantism': Antipapism in The Netherlands Between 1795 and 1830

In this paper a study is reported into antipapism in The Netherlands between the years 1795 and 1830. In the year 1795 religious freedom was proclaimed in The Netherlands, which started an emancipation process among Catholics in The Netherlands. I have studied antipapist expressions that were published in the journal entitled the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, a Protestant cultural journal that had a general readership. Antipapism was clearly evident in the studied period. Catholicism was seen as a superstition, was unenlightened and unreasonable. These characteristics were seen to apply to Catholics too as well as to countries where Catholicism was the predominant religion. The intensity of antipapism is related to the experienced fear of Roman Catholicism and to the increased power of Catholics. Antipapism changed in view of political and social events during 1795 and 1830. At the end of the paper I plead for a combined historical and psychological approach in studying intergroup relationships and stereotyping.