The present study was designed to map out the area of research in experimental social psychology during the past decade. First of all, we found a broad range of topics that can be grouped info 21 general content domains. Theories in Social Psychology, Group Processes and Social Interaction, Social Judgement, Personality Variables and Specific Social Behaviour as well as Attitudes were the jive most widely researched fields of study. During the ten-year period 1971 -1 980 Attribution Theory showed a significant increase in the number of articles published. Cooperation and Conflict as well as Risky-Ship are lines of research which have nearly been abandoned. Finally, in rigorous experimental social psychology the analysh of Social Problems is evidently underrepresented. But a survey of the literature on Social Problems in the Psychological Abstracts j?om 1971 to 1980 revealed that social psychologists are currently serving both theoretical and practical ends.'This paper was prepared with support of the State of Baden-Wiirttemberg, Ministry of Science and Arts. In addition, the technical assistance of Karin Sommer is gratefully acknowledged.
Given the importance of group decision-making for organizations, small group research finds itself challenged to contribute to a better understanding and management of the underlying processes. A multi-level interaction process analysis is presented considering group decisionmaking as a social interaction process. In an illustrative case study, the deliberation of a jury dramatized in the film 'Twelve Angry Men' is analyzed. The interactions are coded at the behavioral level using the Conference Coding System, distinguishing task-oriented, socialemotional and procedural aspects of social interaction. At the content level, the focus is on critical incidents in information exchange, looking for argumentational turning points, and critical points in decision-making. Different data analysis strategies are used to study the interaction process at the behavioral and content level and their interdependence. The results are interpreted in the context of different theories on group decision-making and several heuristic hypotheses about the process dynamics of group decision-making are derived.keywords group decision-making, group information processing, interaction process analysis
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