Task uncertainty, decision importance, and group reinforcement as determinants of communication processes in groups.

Abstract

Related task uncertainty, decision importance, and the reinforcement value of information received to predecisional information-seeking behavior in a social influence situation. 144 undergraduates participated in a 3-choice probability learning task. Ss had the opportunity to seek the alleged predictive responses of 2 other individuals prior to making their own predictive responses. The dependent variables were the trial number on which the first information-seeking response occurred and the number of information-seeking responses emitted over trials. Results indicate that (a) uncertainty and importance combined in an additive manner to determine the instigation of information-seeking behavior; (b) uncertainty and the reinforcement value of the information received interacted and determined the maintenance of information-seeking behavior; and (c) reward associated with making correct responses, and not the expected value of an information-seeking response, maintained search behavior over trials. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)