Some psychological aspects of committee work

Abstract

Groups of 3 and of 6 members, comprising in all 1312 students of average age 20, were required to reach a majority decision on four types of problems; speed and accuracy scores were taken. In matching photographs with names of emotions portrayed (Feleky experiment) the smaller groups were quicker and as accurate or more so; in formulating the principle of a multiple-choice set-up, the larger groups were quicker and more accurate; in solving auction-bridge problems, the results are not conclusive, but seem to favor the larger groups; in judging the merit of English compositions, the smaller groups are quicker and more accurate. Practice effects were small, and intelligence scores were approximately equated; women appear to be more cooperative on abstract material than men, hence on such material their larger groups tend to do better; there is little difference on concrete material. The author believes that a distinction is to be made between material lending itself to the immediate formation of opinion, in which case the mediating work of the committee is in proportion to its size, and that in which a hypothesis can be immediately relinquished if proved wrong, wherefore size is of advantage because facilitating the multiplication of hypotheses to be tested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)