Effects of group size and procedural influence on consensual judgments of quantity: The examples of damage awards and mock civil juries.

Abstract

Six-person mock civil juries awarded significantly larger amounts for damages than did 12-person juries, and individuals preferred even larger average awards. A reversal of the "deep-pockets bias" observed earlier, an explanation involving temporal fluctuation in normative standards, during the time interval between the studies, was supported by independent data showing temporal trends in actual civil trial awards. A computational model of consensus that assumed a strong majority of those members with the most similar (closest) personal preferences decided on the median of their preferences accurately predicted award magnitude. Computer simulations explored the effects of critical faction size (majority, etc.) and location within the group, features that might in turn depend on task environment, cultural dynamics, and social context.

Exploring the debate on short‐termism: a theoretical and empirical analysis

“…The existence of conformity in relation to a particular issue is normally measured by relating the focal person's behavior to that of the average behavior of other group members (e.g., Davis et al, 1997;Chattopadhyay et al, 1999). We are therefore able to draw on this research practice in order to explore the extent to which a focal manager's short-termism is determined by the shorttermism of other managers within the work group.…”

Determinants of executive beliefs: comparing functional conditioning and social influence

“…We were also apprehensive that getting information from each executive regarding their social interactions with all other upper-echelon team members would lead to respondent fatigue due to the length of the survey instrument (it already contained around 170 items) and possibly generate conflict among executives as they reflect on and communicate about who influences whom. Finally, computing social influence as an algebraic function (or other descriptive statistic) that includes the beliefs of other persons is a research method that has been accepted in a variety of settings (see, for example, Davis et al, 1997;Tindale et al, 1990 are more likely to be influenced by cultural variables when they first join a group (Louis, 1980), or within a short period thereafter (Katz, 1982). If these arguments are true, then the common exposure explanation leads to the prediction that executives who join at similar times will have more similar beliefs than those who join at dissimilar times.…”

To Give or Not to Give: Children’s and Adolescents’ Sharing and Moral Negotiations in Economic Decision Situations

“…One variable that has been shown to affect social influence of majority and minority group members is group size. For example, Davis, Au, Hulbert, Chen, and Zarnoth (1997) have pointed out that interaction in larger compared to smaller groups seems to foster behavior in line with the majority; the influence of a minority member decreases in larger groups. Even though similar effects have not been tested with children so far, it might be possible that the social influence of a self-interested or prosocial minority group member might not have been as strongregardless of his or her moral reasoning ability-had we studied larger groups.…”