ABSTRACT
In forming decision-making groups, people often make assumptions about how and why group members will share information. One assumption is that groups are inherently cooperative: group members will focus on attaining group goals and behave in ways consistent with those goals (Wittenbaum, Hollingshead, & Botero, 2004). Another assumption is that individuals will share all of what they know with other group members and will communicate it in a way that is unbiased, accurate, and complete. Finally, there is an assumption that information will be shared equally between all other group members. Much of the research on information sharing in cooperative groups makes similar assumptions about how group members work together (Wittenbaum, Hollingshead, & Botero, 2004).
