Small Group Research

http://sgr.sagepub.com Information Acquisition Bias during the Preparation of Group Discussion: A Comparison of Prospective Minority and Majority Members
Alain van Hiel and Vicky Franssen Small Group Research 2003; 34; 557 DOI: 10.1177/104649640255377 The online version of this article can be found at: http://sgr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/5/557

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Van Hiel, Franssen / INFORMATION ACQUISITION BIAS SMALL GROUP RESEARCH / October 2003 10.1177/104649640255377

ARTICLE

INFORMATION ACQUISITION BIAS DURING THE PREPARATION OF GROUP DISCUSSION: A Comparison of Prospective Minority and Majority Members
ALAIN VAN HIEL
Ghent University, Belgium

VICKY FRANSSEN
Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen, Belgium

The present research investigates whether prospective minority and majority members exhibit information acquisition bias to exert social influence in a forthcoming group interaction. In particular, the question of whether (a) the mere fact of attending to a forthcoming group discussion and (b) group decision rule (majority rule vs. unanimity rule) alter the orientation toward supporting evidence is investigated. This study found that minorities exhibit greater information acquisition bias than equal and majority factions, especially when the minorities expected a group interaction. Group decision rule did not have any significant effect. The absence of effects of group decision rule and the relationship between coalition formation and cognitive processes are discussed. Keywords: bias; group discussion; information acquisition; majority influence; minority influence

Considerable evidence obtained in experimental social psychology shows that disagreement prompts people toward uniformity in groups (e.g., Asch, 1956; Festinger, 1954). Since the paper of
AUTHORS NOTE: Correspondence should be addressed to Alain Van Hiel, Ghent University, Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000, Ghent, Belgium; e-mail address: alain.vanhiel@ugent.be.
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Deutsch and Gerard (1955), theorists have distinguished between two processes underlying conformity and group uniformity: informational influence and normative influence. Informational influence is defined as an influence to accept information from another as evidence about objective reality. Normative influence is defined as an influence to conform to the positive expectations of another. Three major theories that hypothesize different processes underlying minority and majority influence can be mentioned: Moscovicis (1980; 1985) conversion theory, Mackies (1987) objective consensus approach, and Nemeths (1994; 1995) convergencedivergence perspective. According to Moscovici, minorities exert influence via informational processes, whereas majorities make use of normative processes. That is, majority sources elicit a comparison process that leads the targets attention to the discrepancies between his or her position and the position advocated. This comparison process leads to a self-presentational conflict. Conversely, minorities elicit a validation process that leads the targets attention to the issue itself. The target exhibits a more deliberative style of thought that leads to private internalization of the minoritys position. Moscovici also asserted that consistent style is a key determinant of minority effectiveness (e.g., Moscovici & Mugny, 1983). A second approach, Nemeths convergence-divergence model of social influence, asserts that the presence of minority dissent stimulates divergent thought, a consideration of the issue from multiple perspectives, and the use of more diverse information. Consistent minority influence adds quality, insight, and creativity to the group product (Nemeth, 1994). Finally, Mackies objective consensus theory states that people expect that their beliefs are shared widely and targets exhibit greater cognitive activity when majorities violate this expectation. Unlike the two previous perspectives, Mackies theory casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of minorities to persuade others. Moreover, there is an emerging consensus that minorities capacity to exert influence is limited to particular circumstances such as situations in which minorities are considered in-group members (David & Turner, 1996) or new views and solutions are valued (Wood, 2000).

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MINORITIES ARE ACTIVE AGENTS OF PERSUASION

All the aforementioned studies on minority influence typically present a minority or a majority source advocating a single influence appeal to a lone target (Wood, Lundgren, Ouellette, Busceme, & Blackstone, 1994). This research tradition focuses on the reception side of social influence, though some recent work has begun to consider minority influence in freely interacting groups in which participants are subjected to mutual reciprocal influence (e.g., McLeod, Baron, Marti, & Yoon, 1997; Schulz-Hardt, Frey, Lutghens, & Moscovici, 2000; Smith, Tindale, & Dugoni, 1996; Van Hiel, 1998). Van Hiel and colleagues (1998; Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2001) started from the assumption that effective factions take advantage of factors known to maximize social influence. As such, the main question of this research was restated as follows: Are intrapersonal cognitive processes found in the recipient of social influence replicatedby interpersonal processes from the actor? Thus, the factors known to enhance influence of minority sources in receptors that have been extensively studied in previous research were considered potential candidates to be applied by minorities that actually try to persuade others. Van Hiel and Mervielde (2001) applied this key assumption on group discussion preparation. In Bassili and Provencal (1988) participants viewed a videotape and were instructed to form general impressions of the persons that acted as a minority or a majority in a four-person group. Despite the fact that the behavior of both factions was controlled for, the general picture of minorities that emerged from Bassili and Provencals findings was one of strength, conviction, integrity, and consistency (p. 12). However, in Van Hiel and Mervielde, minority and majority members were asked to rate the effectiveness of various influence tactics when preparing themselves for group discussion. Minority members gave significantly higher ratings for the effectiveness of assertiveness and consistency than did majorities. Hence, this study shows that a minoritys strength and firmness is more than only a matter of perception but extends to the minority members self-perceptions of how to

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persuade other group members. The convergence between the observers perceptions and the actors intentions seems to indicate that there exists an implicit norm of how one has to behave as a minority member and what is expected of a minority member. This finding illustrates that the perception of consistency and strength is not only in the eye of the beholder, but that minorities that want to exert influence actually feel they should behave this way. This principle also applies to freely interacting groups. Van Hiel (1998), for example, reported that effective minorities, compared to effective majorities, exhibit a greater orientation toward informational resources in a quantitative sense as suggested by Moscovicis (1980; 1985) theory. In freely interacting groups, this translates into a greater repetition of information by minorities (Moscovici & Mugny, 1983; Paicheler, 1976). Van Hiel also showed that minorities generated a greater variety of arguments, as suggested by the Nemeth (1994; 1995) perspective. Meyers, Brashers, and Hanner (2000) reported that in freely interacting groups, consistency in presentation of argumentsas one would expect from Moscovicis theorywas greatest among minorities.
INFORMATION ACQUISITION BIAS OF MINORITIES DURING THE PREPARATION OF GROUP DISCUSSION

The present study concerns information acquisition bias of minority and majority factions during the preparation of group discussion, which previously elicited attention of only two studies Levine and Russo (1995) and Zdaniuk and Levine (1996). Levine and Russo studied how anticipated membership to factions of varying sizes affected prospective group membersacquisition of issuerelevant information. Introductory psychology students were led to believe that they would discuss a controversial issue (i.e., Do you think that the insanity defense should be retained or abolished?) in a six-person group. They were assigned to either a one- or twoperson minority faction, or to a four- or five-person majority faction. It was found that participants in small minorities and small majorities read significantly more arguments in favor of their own position, whereas they read less arguments that opposed their

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choice. In particular, one-person minorities compared with twoperson minorities and four-person majorities compared with fiveperson majorities exhibited more information acquisition bias. In the other study on discussion preparation, Zdaniuk and Levine (1996) asked students to list their thoughts on the advisability of introducing a senior comprehensive exam at their university. Hence, in this study, participants only had the possibility to list their thoughts, whereas in Levine and Russo (1995) they were allowed to acquire new information. Zdaniuk and Levines results indicate that two-person minorities did not show information acquisition bias. This divergent result was accounted for by the fact that twoperson minorities that can acquire new information are taken seriously, whereas two-person minorities that cannot acquire new information do not elicit this kind of respect. In circumstances such as those presented in Levine and Russo, two-person minorities may think they have a good chance to persuade the other group members because information acquisition may strengthen their position. In sum, the results of Levine and Russo (1995) and Zdaniuk and Levine (1996) corroborate Van Hiel and Mervieldes (2001) assumption that minority members, especially, try to act forceful and strengthen their position. Hence, Hypothesis 1 states that minorities are predominantly oriented toward supporting evidence and will show greater information acquisition bias.
GROUP DECISION RULES

Zdaniuk and Levine (1996) suggested that the discussion goal of reaching consensus might limit the generalizability of their results. The present study therefore investigates the role of decision rules. Research on decision rules reports that when a group decision involves a majority rule, minority members are less likely to shift toward the group position than when a unanimity rule is imposed (e.g., Miller, 1989). Accordingly, Zdaniuk and Levine asserted that with a majority decision rule, minority members need to persuade fewer people to win the group discussion than they would under the unanimity rule. Thus, the goal of prevailing in a discussion might seem to be more attainable to minority members under the majority

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rule, and hence, they might be more motivated to have arguments that are in favor of their position and that exhibit bias. Conversely, Beersma and De Dreu (2002) argued that the use of a unanimity rule results in a situation in which the minority has veto power. That is, the unanimity rule implies that all group members have to support a particular decision for it to be implemented, whereas a majority rule implies that a majority of group members is enough for a group agreement. Hence, one could expect that minorities are less apt to capitulate with a unanimity rule and they should therefore be more inclined to defend their position. Thus, the question whether the greatest information acquisition in minorities occurs with majority or unanimity decision rule is referred to as Research Question 1.
THE PRESENT STUDY

The present study is a conceptual replication of the study of Levine and Russo (1995), although the present study also assesses some extra control conditions. First, Levine and Russo did not administer discussion preparation of equal factions. The present study includes equal factions to have a reference value for information acquisition bias by minorities and majorities (see also, Zdaniuk & Levine, 1996). Second, in the control condition of Levine and Russo, participants expected a group discussion but were given no information about the opinions of other group members. Hence, Levine and colleagues did not administer control conditions in which no group interaction was expected; neither did participants know whether they represented a minority or majority position. The present study tries to discern the effects of being a member of a minority or majority faction on one hand and the effects of discussion preparation on the other hand. Hence, Research Question 2 refers to the source of the information acquisition bias effect.

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METHOD
PARTICIPANTS

The participants were 121 first-year psychology students at Ghent University. They participated in partial fulfillment of a research experience requirement of introductory psychology courses.
DESIGN

A 2 2 factorial experimental design was obtained by varying faction (minority vs. majority member) and decision rule (majority vs. unanimous rule). The minority faction/majority rule, majority faction/majority rule, minority faction/unanimous rule, and majority faction/unanimous rule are referred to as Conditions 1 through 4, respectively. A control condition (Condition 5) with equal factions was also assessed. A 1 3 factorial design was obtained by comparing equal factions with minority and majority factions for unanimous rule groups (Conditions 3 and 4). The focus on unanimous rule groups is consistent with previous research. Two control conditions (Conditions 6 and 7) in which no interaction was expected were also assessed. A 2 2 factorial design was obtained by comparing minorities and majorities who did or did not expect group interaction. Because it is impossible to assign a group decision rule in the no-expectation conditions, we aggregated the data from the majority and unanimous rule conditions (Conditions 1 through 4) in the expected group interaction conditions. Information acquisition bias was defined as the time spent on reading supporting information minus the time spent on reading opposing information, divided by the total reading time. The scores on this measure range between 1 (only opposing information has been read) and +1 (only supporting information has been read).

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PROCEDURE

Participants were invited in groups of 12 to 15 and individually completed the experiment on a personal computer. They were told that they would have to solve a murder mystery and that a small group discussion would follow in the second phase of the session. The murder mystery task was adapted from Stasser and Stewart (1992) and featured five interviews from a homicide investigation. These interviews contained clues that were incriminating for each of the two suspects. In the present version of the murder mystery, critical exonerating clues were not given to the participants and the guilty suspect in the original story was said to be a witness to the murder. The incriminating clues given to the participants were weaker versions of the original texts. It was therefore impossible to identify a guilty suspect. In the beginning of the experimental session, the participants received the following instructions (written in Dutch): In the first phase of the experiment, you have to prepare yourself for the forthcoming group discussion. You have 13 minutes to read five interviews that enable you to identify the guilty suspect of a homicide. Afterwards, you have to tell us whom the guilty suspect is. In the majority rule condition, participants learned that in the forthcoming group discussion, a decision would require a majority of its members to agree with it. In the unanimous rule condition, participants could end the forthcoming discussion when they all agreed on the group position. The five interviews were presented on a computer menu and participants could select any interview by pressing a key. The interview was then depicted on the screen and by pressing the key ESC participants were able to return to the menu whenever they wanted to do so. After choosing the guilty suspect, participants were informed about their group. We told them that the computer would assign them to a four-, five-, or six-person discussion group (in reality, they were always assigned to a six-person group) on the basis of their choice. In the minority condition, participants learned that one person agreed and four people disagreed with his or her opinion. In the majority condition, participants learned that three people agreed

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and two people disagreed with his or her opinion. To enhance the salience of the experimental manipulation, participants were asked to write down the composition of their group on a separate sheet. They subsequently read some extra information about the two suspects to check their initial opinion in the light of additional information. Participants were reminded of the forthcoming group discussion and the decision rule to be used. They were given 5 minutes to read this extra information, which is certainly not enough to read all of it. You therefore have to choose carefully what information you want to read. By pressing a key they were able to select a suspect. Participants then had to choose incriminating or exonerating information by pressing the key I or E. The information was shown on the screen and by pressing the key ESC participants were able to return to the menu. Time spent on reading each of the four screens (each had 475 words) was measured and served as a basis for the dependent variable. Finally, participants were debriefed, thanked for their participation, and dismissed.

RESULTS

Information acquisition bias was analyzed in a Faction (minority member vs. majority member) Decision Rule (majority rule vs. unanimous rule) full-factorial ANOVA. As shown in Table 1, and in accordance with Hypothesis 1, minority members showed more information acquisition bias (M = .26) than majority members (M = .01), F(1, 64) = 4.09, p < .05. The effect of decision rule, F(1, 64) = .72, and the interaction effect between decision rule and minoritymajority status, F(1, 64) = 2.47, did not attain the conventional significance levels. With respect to Research Question 1, the present results thus show little impact of decision rule. Minorities greater information acquisition bias is, however, difficult to interpret because we do not have a baseline to compare the mean-level differences. That is, a three-three condition would provide a standard that would allow the evaluation of whether minorities exhibit more bias or majorities

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TABLE 1: Information Acquisition Bias: Effects of Faction (Minority vs. Majority Members) and Decision Rule (Majority Rule vs. Unanimous Rule) Consensus Rule Minority member Majority member NOTE: Standard deviations shown in parentheses. .42 (.51) .06 (.60) Majority rule .10 (.63) .04 (.41)

exhibit less bias. As Table 2 shows, a significant effect, F(2, 48) = 5.25, p < .01, for faction (equal faction member, minority member vs. majority member) was noted. Duncan post hoc tests revealed significantly (p < .05) more bias in minority members (M = .42) than in majority members (M = .06) and equal faction members (M = .09). This result further substantiates Hypothesis 1. Next, we analyzed whether the greater bias in minorities was caused by the mere fact that the participants were members of a minority or majority faction or by the fact that they did or did not expect interaction. As shown in Table 3, a significant effect, F(1, 100) = 4.00, p < .05, occurred for expectation of interaction; participants showed more information acquisition bias when they expected a group interaction than when they did not expect an interaction. A significant interaction effect, F(1, 100) = 4.31, p < .05, between faction (minority vs. majority) and expectation (no interaction expected vs. interaction expected) was also found. Minority members showed less bias when no interaction was expected (M = .18) than when an interaction was expected (M = .26). Majority members showed little difference between the no interaction expected condition (M = .00) and the interaction expected condition (M = .01). With respect to Research Question 2, the results thus indicate that the combination of minority status and expectation of interaction leads to the highest levels of information acquisition bias.

DISCUSSION

The aim of the present study was twofold: (a) to answer the question whether group decision rule would alter a minoritys orienta-

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TABLE 2: Information Acquisition Bias in Minority, Equal-Faction, and Majority Members Control Bias .09 (.41) Minority Member Majority Member .42 (.51) .06 (.60)

NOTE: Standard deviations shown in parentheses.

TABLE 3: Information Acquisition Bias in Minority and Majority Members: Effects of Expectation No Interaction Expected Minority member Majority member .18 (.54) (n = 17) .00 (.38) (n = 19) Interaction Expected .26 (.59) (n = 34) .01 (.51) (n = 34)

NOTE: Standard deviations shown in parentheses.

tion toward supporting evidence, and (b) to discern the effects of minority versus majority status and the mere fact of attending to an upcoming group discussion. With respect to the first aim referred to by Research Question 1, the present results clearly show a limited effect of group decision rule. With respect to the second aim referred to by Research Question 2, it was found that anticipated group interaction induced biased information acquisition and that this was especially true for minorities, not majorities. Moreover, the present findings corroborate Hypothesis 1, which states that minority members, especially, try to strengthen their position in order to behave in a forceful manner. The present results indicate that members of minorities show much higher levels of information acquisition bias than do members of equal and majority factions. The present findings corroborate, for example, the study by Schulz-Hardt et al. (2000) on biased information acquisition, although in this study bias was measured at the group level (and not at the individual level). Their experiments generally indicated less biased information acquisition in heterogeneous groups (groups with a minority and a majority) than in unanimous groups. Of particular interest in the present context, their Experiment 3 revealed that compared to a baseline that consisted of the mean score of the initial bias scores of all members, heterogeneous groups engaged in a more balanced information

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search after a first discussion phase. Hence, a sensible explanation for these findings is that such a group debiasing effect is possible only if the information acquisition bias toward the minority view is stronger than the majority bias. Nemeth and Rogers (1996) conducted an experiment that was quite similar to the present control conditions in which no group interaction was expected. Participants were given fictitious feedback on their minority and majority status; afterwards, they had the opportunity to read supporting or nonsupporting articles. The present results in the no interaction expectation conditions do not corroborate their finding that minority members (i.e., participants who did not agree with a majority) were biased toward supporting information, but the results in our expected interaction conditions are reminiscent of their results. Hence, when the groups in Nemeth and Rogerss study would have expected group interaction, one should certainly expect higher levels of information acquisition bias. In other words, Nemeth and Rogerss results suggest that with an appropriate task, minorities may even exhibit bias without expecting a group interaction. The question of whether the present findings corroborate Levine and Russo (1995) is difficult to answer because these authors did not report post hoc analyses comparing four-member majority factions with two-person minority factions. However, from the results presented in their Figure 3, it seems fair to conclude that four-member majorities are a bit more biased than two-person minorities. Hence, their pattern of results is somewhat divergent from the present findings. This divergence might be explained by the use of different tasks in these two studies. That is, Levine and Russo used a judgmental task, whereas the present task has much more problemsolving potential. Stewart and Stasser (1998) reported greater minority influence on information pooling in discussion groups when the task (analogous to the one used in the present study) was explicitly defined as a problem-solving task rather than when participants were told that no correct answer existed. Thus, when minority members think that a correct answer exists, they might be more inclined to defend their position and to evince more information acquisition bias. Another possible explanation of these diver-

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gent results concerns the importance participants ascribe to the discussion topic (see, De Dreu & De Vries, 1996). The issues presented in Levine and Russo were certainly more relevant for the participants than the present task. In their study, introductory psychology students learned that they would discuss the issue of the insanity defense. It would seem quite reasonable to assume that students who take courses in psychology may ascribe high importance to this issue. Presumably, the search for a suspect in a fictitious case does not elicit this kind of interest. Given these divergent findings, future research should investigate the potential impact of taskrelated features on information search in general (e.g., Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2002) and information acquisition bias in particular (e.g., Frey, 1986). In the remainder, we discuss the absence of effects of group decision rule (majority rule vs. unanimity rule). Finally, the relevance of research on the actor perspective in social influence is briefly pointed at.
GROUP DECISION RULES

In the present study, group members did not seem to be very sensitive to the implications of the different decision rules. This finding corroborates the classic finding of Hackman and Morris (1975) who observed that task group members often do not consider strategies when they start working on a task. In fact, most people who have observed discussion groups in laboratory settings will probably agree with this old theme. That is, group members just begin to work on the task without any sort of planning. Hackman and Morris even referred to this problem as a cultural norm, suggesting that the lack of consideration of strategies also took place before the actual interaction phase. Thus, in line with the present results, it is unlikely that Hackman and Morriss participants were thinking about what strategies they would use when preparing themselves for the group task because they did not talk about strategies when the interaction started. However, a limitation of the present study is that it does not illustrate the relationship between ratings of effectiveness and measures

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of actual behavior. Actual effectiveness is of greater interest than expected effectiveness. Thus, despite the lack of important effects of group decision rules on minorities and majorities preparation for group discussion, decision rules may play a pivotal role in the interaction phase itself. Unlike the preparation phase, group task characteristics may invoke social motivations that weaken or strengthen minority influence in interactive settings (see, Smith et al., 1996; Van Hiel, 1998). Some studies use group tasks that allow group cooperation toward a common goal (e.g., Mucchi-Faina, Maass, & Volpato, 1991). In such tasks, minorities may be perceived as original contributors or at least as a welcome diversion and cognitive activity may be enhanced. Minorities contributions can also be easily integrated in the group product. In terms of Steiners (1972) group task typology, such a task should be considered an additive task in which group productivity is the sum of all the members contributions. In disjunctive taskssuch as group decision-making tasksthe combination of preferences is certainly more difficult, and group members may not be interested in the expression of different views in light of an emerging group consensus (Schachter, 1951). In such circumstances, factors that might encourage group members to express minority opinions include, among others, getting support for the advocated position (Tanford & Penrod, 1984), having a positive and accepting social group atmosphere (Hackman, 1987), and the possibility to express a dissenting opinion unanimously (McLeod et al., 1997; Spears, Lea, Corneliessen, Postmes, & Ter Haar, 2002; Whitworth, Gallupe, & McQueen, 2001).
COALITION FORMATION AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES

The present results are relevant for research on coalition formation as well as on cognitive processes. These two research traditions have evolved separately despite the relevance of their intersection. Coalition formation research tries to predict which coalition will form to obtain resources (e.g., money, points) and how coalition members will divide these resources. Of particular importance is the power concept. The number and value of the

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alternative coalitions an individual might form determine power. High-power players are defined as those who add more value to the coalitions that include them. A classic finding is that high-power players demand a greater share of the resources (e.g., Mannix, 1993; Polzer, Mannix, & Neale, 1998). Coalition formation theories assign a particular value to the various actors in the game, without considering the base of this value. Nevertheless, the literature on power bases (e.g., French & Raven, 1959) suggests various processes through which power develops, such as being able to give rewards (i.e., reward power), being in a leadership position (i.e., legitimate power), and having experience, knowledge, or information (i.e., expert power or informational power). In the present context, the question arises whether informational power leads to distinctive effects compared to other power bases, as well as whether it can be used as an alternative to compensate for the lack of these other power bases. With respect to the latter issue, it has been reported that weaker parties (i.e., minorities) typically respond by adopting countering strategies such as enhanced problem-solving efforts for integrative solutions (see, Giebels, De Dreu, & Van de Vliert, 2000) or by showing greater complexity of their rhetoric in political disputes (e.g., Tetlock, 1984). Thus, both the present study and the latter studies show that the weaker party tries to gain influence through the use of informationbased processes. However, in all these studies, the minority faction members were well aware of their status. The question remains at issue whether individuals who lack other power bases try to improve their attractiveness before coalitions are formed.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the present finding that minorities show the greatest information bias, especially when they are supposed to defend their position in a forthcoming group discussion, surely corroborates the arguments that effective minorities not only elicit a picture of strength and conviction in targets of influence attempts (as has been abundantly shown in previous research, e.g., Bassili & Provencal,

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1988) but also try to behave as decisive, consistent, and strong as prospective actors (see, Meyers et al., 2000; Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2001) and that they have a greater orientation toward information (see, Van Hiel, 1998) and greater consistency in presentation of arguments (Meyers et al., 2000) in freely interacting groups. Conversely, when minorities do not feel that they have much chance to persuade the other group members because they are not able to acquire new information (e.g., Zdaniuk & Levine, 1996) or because the task does not lend itself to show easily ones right because of the lack of a demonstrable, correct answer, they do not exhibit such high levels of bias.

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Alain Van Hiel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology of Ghent University. His current research interests include social cognition, political psychology, and group decision making. Vicky Franssen is a lecturer at Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from Ghent University in 2003. Her current research interests include time estimation and group decision making.

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