No abstract

Groups tend to discuss and repeat information known by all members (shared) more than they do. information known by one member (unshared). One factor that may influence this effect is the tendency for members to positively evaluate one another when mentioning shared information. Three experiments demonstrated this "mutual enhancement" effect. Experiment 1 showed that mutual enhancement was related to participants' and their partners' exchanging the same pieces of information. Experiment 2 illustrated that mutual enhancement was not related to the extent that participants liked partners or saw them as having similar opinions. Experiment 3 showed mutual enhancement in face-to-face dyads that discussed shared information. A combined analysis across the 3 experiments showed the robustness of mutual enhancement. Implications of mutual enhancement for group discussion are considered.Small-group discussion has the potential to inform group members of information that they previously did not know, as each group member likely knows some information that other members do not. Whereas this is most obvious in groups with members of diverse backgrounds and expertise, even homogeneous groups rarely have members with identical knowledge. Conversational norms, which dictate that communicators be informative and avoid telling others information that the others already know (Grice, 1989), seem to push group members toward sharing novel information during discussion. Moreover, if members share their unique knowledge with each other, their enlightenment could lead to better group decisions (Stasser, 1992;Wittenbaum & Stasser, 1996). With this considered, it is surprising that group members do not effectively pool their unique knowledge. Instead, they tend to discuss information that all members know (shared information) at the expense of discussing information that one member uniquely knows (unshared information; see, e.g.,

Self-construal is thought to mediate and explain the effects of culture on a wide variety of outcome variables. A meta-analysis of published cross-cultural self-construal research is reported in this article, and the results across studies suggests that the evidence for the predicted cultural differences is weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent. The results of 3 priming experiments (N = 121, N = 99, and N = 361) suggest that (a) priming does not account for the inconsistent results observed in the meta-analysis, (b) that scores on a self-construal scale appear to be measuring trait-like constructs that are not sensitive to priming, and (c) that measures of self-construals lack convergent validity. The results of several measurement studies (N = 121, 223, 230, 323, 214, 206, 126, 204, 148, 141, and 150) were inconsistent with the a priori two-factor measurement model in every case. Self-construal scales were found to be radically multidimensional and highly unstable within and across cultures. These results lead us to conclude that catastrophic validity problems exist in research involving the use of self-construal scales in cross-cultural research.

No abstract

Groups are often called upon to perform tasks in organizations. Hiring decisions are made by selection committees, product ideas are generated by teams, products are assembled by a collective of individuals, and problems regarding how to cut labor and time costs are solved by task forces. Often, these groups are composed of members with different expertise, skills, and roles, who work on a task that requires them to combine their efforts in a way that facilitates successful task completion. For example, the selection committee may try to pool all members' unique information about the job candidates in order to reach a well-informed decision, team members who generate product ideas may wish to avoid duplication of ideas in order to maximize the quantity of ideas produced, and members assembling a product may build the part that is assigned to them by occupational roles or standard operating procedures. The way in which group members synchronize their actions in order to complete successfully the group task is referred to as group coordination. In other words, group coordination involves who among the members does what, as well as when, where, and how they complete their designated tasks. This chapter explores different ways that members can coordinate their actions, the factors that moderate such coordination attempts, and implications for group performance effectiveness.Coordination is an essential component of successful group performance. As Steiner (1972) suggested, groups whose actual productivity does not equal their potential productivity may have incurred such "process losses" because of either reduced motivation or poor coordination. We will focus on the latter cause of process losses, namely, performance deficits due to group actions that are poorly orchestrated. Coordination losses can stem from inappropriate allocation of resources (e.g., unnec-