The impact of group interaction on shared cognition: An analysis of small group communication

✍ Scribed by Miriam Matteson

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 56 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0044-7870
• DOI: 10.1002/meet.1450440326

✦ Synopsis

This study investigates how small group communication influences the development of shared mental models in work groups. Small groups and teams are social structures ubiquitous in work and personal life. The group experience brings together individuals who interact through communication events. Small group communication is the process through which individuals' share their cognitive schemas with the other members of the group, ideas are constructed and reconstructed, and new schemas are shaped, all of which results in group level shared cognition. The similarity of shared understandings about task work and teamwork is an indicator of group performance.

Following a naturalistic research design, this study investigates how the dimensions of communication type, role, themes, channels, and rules influence the development of shared mental models in the work group. Data from the group's interactions including meeting transcripts and documents, along with interviews with each group member at three points in time will be collected to capture the nature of the communication and the creation of shared mental models about the task and about team interaction. This research will shed light on the communication-related antecedents of shared cognition. The findings of the study will help to clarify further our understanding of the impact of small group communication on social cognition, as well as potentially provide suggestions for managers and group members on using communication more effectively to reach shared mental models.