Learning to communicate risk information in groupsHsuchi Ting and Thomas S. Wallsten Judgment and Decision Making, 2008, vol. 3, issue 8, pages 659-666 Abstract: Despite vigorous research on risk communication, little is known about the social forces that drive these choices. Erev, Wallsten, \& Neal (1991) showed that forecasters learn to select verbal or numerical probability estimates as a function of which mode yields on average the larger group payoffs. We extend the result by investigating the effect of group size on the speed with which forecasters converge on the better communication mode. On the basis of social facilitation theory we hypothesized that small groups induce less arousal and anxiety among their members than do large groups when performing new tasks, and therefore that forecasters in small groups will learn the better communication mode more quickly. This result obtained in Experiment 1, which compared groups of size 3 to groups of size 5 or 6. To test whether social loafing rather than social facilitation was mediating the effects, Experiment 2 compared social to personal feedback holding group size constant at 3 members. Learning was faster in the personal feedback condition, suggesting that social facilitation rather than loafing underlay the results. Keywords: probabilities; probability judgment; risk communication; group size. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jdm:journl:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:659-666 Access Statistics for this article Judgment and Decision Making is edited by Jonathan Baron More articles in Judgment and Decision Making from Society for Judgment and Decision Making |
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