Anonymity & decision making: GDSS - Notes
7 important questions on Anonymity & decision making: GDSS - Notes
What is the deindividuation theory?
public self awareness: concern about the impression you make: what do other people think of us. this can be reduced by anonymity or gives a diffusion of responsibility.
private self awareness: one's own thoughts feelings and standards. This private self awareness can be reduced when becoming so involved in an activity that we forget ourselves, this might cause us to lose internal standards and start relying on environmental cues.
What can you tell about CMC and deindividuation theory?
matheson & Zanna, 1988: less selfawareness (public &private) in CMC condition than F2F condition.
What is the critique on the deindividuation theory?
- Anonymity does not necessarily lead to anti social behavior. and anonymity does not necessarily reduce self awareness.
- there is no consistent empirical support for deindividuation theory.
- researchers started to challange conceptualization of deinidivduation as a loss of self.
- people do not have a unitary sense of self. instead of looking at this awareness studies now focus on people's identities:
- personal identity
- social identity
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What is the Social identity model of deindividuation?
anonymity makes it harder to express and or see personal identities. lack of personal cues. we are more likely to use our social identity in computer discussion, which causes us to indetify even more with the identiy of the group. thus visual anonymity in CMC setting increases social influence!
What can you tell about minority influence?
perharps minorities could be encouraged in group decision making
conversion theory states that different opinions surprise us but often publicly the group does not agree. privately people porcess minority opinions more carefully
according to Moscovici (1969)
we conform to majority because we fear negative reactions.
minority opinions require more thorough processing: presence of minority and majority opinion creates 'conflict'
if people decide the minority is correct, they may initially change their opinion in private, but not in public.
What can you tell about CMC and minorities?
pain gain hypothesis
GDSS facilitates expression of minority opinions, but GDSS also reduces the influence of minority options. this is because of social presence: people pay less attention to minority opinion in anonymous setting. So when people are anonymous more unshared information will be shared, but is does not influence decisions as much as in F2F conditions.
When is it better to make a group decision and when is it better to make an individual decision?
acceptance of decision: when you make the decision in a group it increases te acceptance of that decision.
quality of decision/ expertise: better individual
climate of decision making: save climate then better in a group
amount of time available: group decisions take more time, so it is better to make an individual decision when there is less time available.
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