ABSTRACT

In Chapter 6 we identified a few reasons why groups might not always be more effective than the most competent individuals. The task needs to be defined as a group task rather than a task that is presented to a collection of individuals; there must be some interdependence among the group members’ activities. The rewards associated with the task also need to be defined for the group. In the particular case of brainstorming groups, we found that blocking effects and critical mass effects could make the difference between ineffective and effective group efforts. There are just as many occasions, however, when a group is more effective

than an individual. To explain why that might be the case, Laughlin (1988, 1996) and coworkers (Laughlin, Chandler, Shupe, Magley, & Hulbert, 1995; Laughlin & Futoran, 1985; Laughlin & McGlynn, 1986; Laughlin & Shippy, 1983; Laughlin, VanderStoep, & Hollingshead, 1991) have developed a theory of collective induction. In this context, groups would be more effective than individuals because they can examine information more thoroughly. Groups also have the potential to retrieve errors more reliability, rely on skills and knowledge bases from a greater number of people, and make a true solution to a problem (usually of the convergent, optimizing variety) apparent to each other. The process of making an optimal decision apparent to other members, or the “truth wins” process, is only

possible in cases where there is a verifiable solution to the problem. When the group members disagree, they resort to techniques such as randomly selecting an alternative from the available proposals, voting, taking turns among the proposals, actually demonstrating the superiority of an alternative, and generating new emergent alternatives. This chapter covers some additional group performance phenomena, which involve coordination. The United States military appears to have recognized the special need for coordination through its regular scheduling of military exercises that involve large quantities of personnel. One may glibly dismiss these adventures as simply examples of learning and training, but to do so does not explain the psychology of what the operations personnel were learning. During World War II, the military introduced three acronyms to describe possible maneuver outcomes. The acronyms have become part of common language: the snafu (situation normal, all fouled up, used as a noun or adverb), the fubar (fouled up beyond all recognition, used as an adverb or noun), and the less well-known noun, the janfu ( joint army-navy foul up). At present it does not appear that psychological theories of group behavior

have adequately addressed the fu-family of group behaviors, which are all about coordination. Recently, there have been some good starts, however, and the major push forward comes from an integration of game theory and NDS. The first section of this chapter unpacks the distinctions between coordination and phenomena that look similar on first blush. The second and subsequent sections describe the contributions of game theory, implicit learning and NDS. Following are the results of some recent experiments that illustrate the core phenomenon, the particular role of verbal, as opposed to nonverbal, communication, and what happens when personnel are replaced in a coordination task. The chapter concludes with some thoughts about the coordination among social institutions.