Majority Influence Process in Group Judgment: Test of the Social Judgment Scheme Model in a Group Polarization Context

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to test Davis’s (1996) Social Judgment Scheme (SJS) model, which was proposed as a predictive model of group decision making with continuous alternatives. The SJS model assumes that individual group members’ influence on the group decision exponentially declines with the distance from other members’ judgments (i.e. majority influence process). Fifty-five 3-person groups engaged in eight group polarization tasks. First, the model fits of the SJS model and the Averaging model were compared in terms of the predictive accuracy. Results indicted that the SJS model yielded accurate predictions more often than the Averaging model. Second, a different analytical approach confirmed the model’s corollary—the skewness of individual judgments distribution was negatively correlated with the direction of group polarization. These findings support the model’s assumption of majority influence process in continuous alternatives tasks.

Informational intra‐group influence: the effects of time pressure and group size

“…In Study 1, in which group problem solvers estimated 40 quantities twice over the course of an hour (first individually and then as part of a three-person group), the predicted responses generated through both the bounded linear centrality and exponential centrality models fit well with the actual group judgments, with all other models being rejected. This finding supports previous research showing that group judgments low in demonstrability can be heavily influenced by the centrality of the options being considered Davis, 1996; Nadler et al, 2001;Ohtsubo, Masuchi, & Nakanishi, 2002). However, this study was unable to distinguish between bounded linear and exponential weighting for centrality, finding both to provide adequate and superior fit.…”

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

“…This model aggregates the individual offers of the three group members into one common group decision and predicts that the group offer will be determined by majority processes (see Davis, 1996;Ohtsubo, Masuchi, & Nakanishi, 2002 for the SJS equations and experimental results). The SJS model is used as a baseline model for evaluating the relative influence of group members on the group decision.…”

Factors and Dimensions Influencing Risky and Cautious Decisions: A Study of Selected Kenyan Secondary School Disciplinary Panels

“…The results suggested that relative to men, women do not fare well in mixed-gender contexts. Ohtsubo, Masuchi and Nakanishi (2002), also agree that females in the minority position in a group discussion comply with the majority faction more easily than males. Powers & Reiser, (2005) however, explain that gender differences occur because men have more perceived social power than women; hence women tend to be more likely to conform to men than are men to women.…”