THE QUALITY OF GROUP DECISIONS, GROUP VERBAL-BEHAVIOR, AND INTERVENTION

Individuals bring beliefs and knowledge to group meetings. Group decisions arise out of the exchange of these beliefs and knowledge. Because group interactions are mainly verbal, group verbal behavior should play a central role in determining the quality of group decisions, and process interventions should change group verbal behavior. Subjects were 168 new employees in a Japanese drug company, who constituted 42 four-person groups. Treatment groups received the Consensual Conflict Resolution (CCR) intervention that emphasizes a knowledge-based logical discussion and consensual resolution of conflicts. The group task was the NASA Moon Survival problem. It was found that (1) the quality of group decisions increases to the extent that group members exchange facts and reasons (defined as a ''reasoning'' orientation of group verbal behavior) and decreases to the extent that group members stick to their positions (defined as a ''positional'' orientation), and (2) the CCR intervention increases the reasoning orientation and decreases the positional orientation, thereby improving the quality of group decisions. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.