Dyadic decision as a function of the frequency distributions describing the preferences of members' constituencies.

Abstract

Dyads discussed and reached a decision about either of two social issues: the percentage of university control that should be invested with students and the percentage of the national budget that should be spent on pollution control. For each issue, three different group compositions were created by assigning persons who had been differently obligated by constituencies to whom they were responsible. The summary obligation was in the form of a distribution of preferences about the proportion of constituents favoring each of the decision alternatives. Several stochastic models, assuming different social decision schemes, were derived and tested against the dyadic decision distributions. The idea that members moved through equal distances to a midpoint between them received the most support, but some cases favored an alternative idea; namely, each member was equally likely to win the decision for his position. Both decision schemes could be regarded as variations on the notion of an equalitarian social process.

Social decision schemes of the same four-person groups on two different intellective tasks.

“…Moreover, the respective models applied equally well for homogeneous high-ability, homogeneous low-ability, and mixed high-and low-ability groups. Since this is the first experiment using the social decision scheme approach with more than one task for the same interacting groups, the finding that different social decision scheme models fit different tasks for the same groups greatly increases our confidence that previous studies reporting different social decision schemes fit different tasks are not due to a confounding between tasks and subjects (e.g., Davis et al, 1973;Davis, Hoppe, & Hornseth, 1968;Davis, Hornik, & Hornseth, 1970;Davis, Kerr, Atkin, Holt, & Meek, 1975;Davis, Kerr, Sussmann, & Rissman, 1974;Johnson & Davis, 1972;Laughlin & Bitz, 1975;Zajonc, Wolosin, & Wolosin, 1972).…”

Group decision and social interaction: A theory of social decision schemes.

“…A recent study by Davis, Cohen, Hornik, and Rissman (1973) provides an example of this situation although the notation in that study was quite different than that which is used here. We at-tend to only one experimental condition from Davis et al (1973) in order to illustrate the way a social decision scheme incorporating compromise can work within the theoretical framework we have been following. Subjects played the role of district political representatives.…”

“…This result is evident in Figure 2 (cf. Davis et al, 1973, for a more complete discussion, including group decisions under several other experimental conditions).…”