Exploring the Effects of Group Mood on Group Decision Making

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

Social psychologists have recognized the importance of a group's emotional life for its performance, development, and health. Until recently, however, relatively little research attention has been paid to the role of affect in group performance. Over the past few decades, research on individual people has shown that moods and emotions have profound influences on many areas of cognitive functioning. For example, mood has been found to affect persuasion and person perception, and it appears to do so through influencing the processes of memory, attention, and type of information processing. In terms of information processing, positive moods lead to less systematic and greater heuristic processing of information, whereas negative moods lead to less heuristic and greater systematic processing of information. Recent group level models suggest that group mood will also have similarly important influences on group performance through its impact on the information processing abilities of groups. That is, group moods will also affect the heuristic and systematic processing qualities of the group interaction. The main objective of this project is to examine the effect of group mood on group decision making. Specific aims are to demonstrate that (1) group moods can be successfully manipulated in the laboratory, (2) group moods influence group decision making outcomes, (3) these differences occur through altering the way that groups process information, similar to how moods affect how individuals process information, and (4) these information processing differences can be assessed through the observation of group interactions, as well as through some self-report measures. This research program provides training in small group experimental methods for several graduate students and up to fifty undergraduates. The results of these studies will form the empirical core of an understanding of how group mood affects group decision making. In the long term, this research program is intended to advance our understanding of affective influences on group performance in a wide variety of contexts, including work, friendship, and school groups, as well as experimental research groups.