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The present study tested the relationship between a group's ability to differentiate characteristics of conflict and consensus/cohesion formation. A total of 141 subjects participated in 32 problem-solving discussions. Subjects responded to a post-discussion questionnaire that assessed their ability to discriminate characteristics of four types of conflict: personalized/positive, personalized/negative, depersonalized/positive, and depersonalized/negative. The results indicated that high consensus groups had significantly higher differentiation scores on personalized/positive, depersonalized/negative, and depersonalized/positive conflicts than did low consensus groups. Also, high cohesion groups had significantly higher differentiation scores on depersonalized/positive and depersonalized/negative conflict than did low cohesion groups. Low cohesion groups, however, had significantly higher scores on personalized/negative conflict than did high cohesion groups. The results affirmed the importance of the differentiation process to group decision making and suggested additional approaches for investigating the phenomenon.

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One lesson to be learned from the fatal decision to launch Challenger is that effective technical and group communication requires more than the fidelious exchange of information. This article examines testimony gathered by the Presidential Commission on the Challenger Accident and reveals communication failures in four dimensions of group differentiation—clarity, interrelatedness, centrality, and openness. The article illustrates all four dimensions with excerpts from the Commission Hearings and identifies communication problems peculiar to highly technical groups.

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