Abstract:
Group decision making under uncertainty often requires groups to balance exploration of their environment with exploitation of the seemingly best option. In order to succeed at this collective induction, groups need to merge the knowledge of all group members and combine goal-oriented and social motivations (i.e., group cohesion). This paper presents three studies that investigate whether more cohesive groups perform worse at collective induction tasks as they spend less time exploring possible options. Study 1 simulates group decision making with the ε-greedy algorithm in order to identify suitable manipulations of group cohesion and investigate how differing exploration lengths can affect outcomes of group decisions. Study 2 (N = 108, 18 groups á 6 participants) used an experimental manipulation of group cohesion in a simple card choice task to investigate how group cohesion might affect group decision making when only limited social information is available. Study 3 (N = 96, 16 groups á 6 participants) experimentally manipulated group cohesion and used the HoneyComb paradigm, a movement-based group experiment platform, to investigate which group processes would emerge during decision making and how these processes would affect the relationships between group cohesion, exploration length, and group decision making. Study 1 found that multiplicative cohesion rewards have detrimental effects on group decision making, while additive group rewards could ameliorate negative effects of the cohesion reward, especially when reported separately from task rewards. Additionally, exploration length was found to profoundly affect decision quality. Studies 2 and 3 showed that groups could identify the best reward option successfully, regardless of group cohesion manipulation. This effect is interpreted as a ceiling effect as the decision task was likely too easy to solve. Study 3 identified that spatial group cohesion on the playing field correlated with self-reported entitativity and leader-/followership emerged spontaneously in most groups and correlated with self-reported perceptions of leader-/followership in the game. We discuss advantages of simulation studies, possible adaptations to the ε-greedy algorithm, and methodological aspects of measuring behavioral group cohesion and leadership to inform empirical studies investigating group decision making under uncertainty.
摘要:
不确定性下的群体决策通常需要群体在探索环境与开发看似最佳选择之间取得平衡。为了在这种集体归纳法中取得成功,团体需要合并所有团体成员的知识,并结合目标导向和社会动机(即,团体凝聚力)。本文提出了三项研究,以调查更具凝聚力的小组在集体诱导任务中的表现是否较差,因为他们花了更少的时间探索可能的选择。研究1使用ε-贪婪算法模拟群体决策,以确定对群体凝聚力的合适操作,并研究不同的探索长度如何影响群体决策的结果。研究2(N=108,18组和6参与者)在简单的卡片选择任务中使用了小组凝聚力的实验操作,以研究当只有有限的社会信息可用时,小组凝聚力如何影响小组决策。研究3(N=96,16组和6名参与者)通过实验操纵群体凝聚力,并使用HoneyComb范式,基于运动的小组实验平台,调查在决策过程中会出现哪些群体过程,以及这些过程将如何影响群体凝聚力之间的关系,勘探长度,和群体决策。研究1发现,乘法内聚奖励对群体决策有不利影响,虽然加性群体奖励可以改善凝聚力奖励的负面影响,特别是当与任务奖励分开报告时。此外,勘探长度被发现深刻影响决策质量。研究2和3表明,小组可以成功地确定最佳奖励选项,不管群体凝聚力的操纵。这种效应被解释为天花板效应,因为决策任务可能太容易解决。研究3发现,运动场上的空间群体凝聚力与大多数群体中自发出现的自我报告的主体性和领导者/追随者相关,并与游戏中自我报告的领导者/追随者的感知相关。我们讨论了仿真研究的优势,对ε-贪婪算法的可能适应,以及测量行为群体凝聚力和领导力的方法论方面,为研究不确定性下的群体决策提供实证研究。