title: How do children share information in groups?
abstract: Group decision making should be particularly beneficial when group members share unique information, because then a group can make a better decision than each group member alone. This study examined how elementary-school children share unique information during group decision making. Seventy-nine groups of 3 same-sex and same-age 7- and 9-year-old children (N = 237) had to decide which 1 of 2 hypothetical candidates should play the lead role in a school musical. When information was unshared, group members had to exchange their uniquely held information to identify the best candidate. Only a minority of groups picked the best candidate when information was unshared. Yet, groups of 7-year-old children were better at identifying the best candidate and were less likely to focus on the discussion of shared information than groups of 9-year-olds. These findings are interpreted with reference to processes underlying information sharing in groups, namely collective information sampling, preference-consistent evaluation, and collaborative inhibition/intersubjectivity.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: Michaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gummerum
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London.
authors.forename: Patrick J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Leman
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: Tara S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Hollins
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests