Discovery of Hidden Profiles by Decision-Making Groups: Solving a Problem Versus Making a Judgment

An information-sampling model proposed by Stasser and Titus (1985, 1987) and observations of discussion content (Stasser, Taylor, & Hanna, 1989) suggest that face-to-face discussions often fail to disseminate unshared information. However, groups may be less prone to overlooking unshared information if they believe that their task has a demonstrably correct answer (Laughlin, 1980). University students read a murder mystery and then met in groups to discuss the case. Groups believed they had either sufficient (solve set) or insufficient (judge set) evidence to determine the guilty suspect. When critical clues were unshared before discussion, 67% of solve, but only 35% of judge, groups identified the guilty suspect. Discussion content analyses showed that solve groups focused more on the critical clues.