Hi Brad and Connson,
the following reference contains information on a hidden profile task,
and complete info can be obtained from the first author:
Schulz-Hardt, Stefan; Brodbeck, Felix C; Mojzisch, Andreas;
Kerschreiter, Rudolf; Frey, Dieter. Group Decision Making in Hidden
Profile Situations: Dissent as a Facilitator for Decision Quality.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 91(6) Dec 2006, 1080-1093.
Sandra
And here is the info copied from the paper:
The decision case deals with an airline company looking for a new pilot
for long-distance flights. The participants play the role of a member of
the personnel selection committee of this airline company. They have to
choose between four candidates named A, B, C, and D. In the full
information set, each of the four candidates is characterized by 10
attributes that are either positive or negative. These 40 attributes had
been selected in a pretest in which 100 items were rated by a sample of
112 students. From this item pool, those 40 attributes were chosen that
were rated as most unambiguously positive or negative and as being of
comparable importance and strength. An example of a positive attribute
is “The candidate can concentrate very well over long periods.” An
example of a negative attribute is “The candidate is said to be a
know-it-all.” In contrast to positive attributes, extremely negative
attributes were avoided because it would be implausible that such a
candidate would have survived the organizational preselection.The
distribution of information about the four candidates is shown in Table
1 <http://gateway.ut.ovid.com/gw1/ovidweb.cgi#TT1>. We made sure that
the four candidates received attributes of similar average strength and
importance, so that the number of positive and negative attributes per
candidate should decide their ranking (full information about all
pretested and selected items as well as all statistics can be obtained
from Stefan Schulz-Hardt). Given the full information set, Candidate C
was the best choice.3 <http://gateway.ut.ovid.com/gw1/ovidweb.cgi#184>
Whereas this candidate had seven positive and only three negative
attributes, all other three candidates (A, B, and D) had four positive
and six negative attributes. This ranking was confirmed in a second
pretest with 71 students who were given the full candidate information.
Of these 71 participants, 62 participants (87%) chose Candidate C.In the
hidden profile conditions, each member received a subset of this
information. For Candidates A, B, and D, all positive attributes were
shared and all negative attributes were unshared. Thus, for each group
member, each of the Candidates A, B, and D had four advantages and only
two disadvantages prior to discussion. In contrast, all negative
attributes and only one positive attribute about Candidate C were
shared, with the other six positive attributes unshared. Thus, for each
group member, Candidate C had three advantages and three disadvantages
prior to discussion. As a consequence, most group members should prefer
Candidate A, B, or D prior to discussion. By detecting that Candidate C,
who initially seems to be the least attractive one, is in fact really
the best candidate, the groups can realize a group-specific surplus in
decision quality. However, because the initial difference in positive
and negative attributes is not large and because there is always some
variation with respect to participants' idiosyncratic interpretations of
the perceived importance and valence of information, at least some
participants should prefer Candidate C prior to discussion, which
allowed us to form groups with a proponent for the correct choice.
Connson Locke wrote:
> Hi Brad,
>
> The Kellogg Dispute Resolution Research Center (DRRC) publishes a good
> hidden profile exercise called PB Technologies. It can be found on
> their CD under "team decision making." They charge a per student fee
> for use of the exercise. Go to the link below for a description.
>
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/drrc/teaching/team_decision.htm
>
> I don't know of any other similar exercises aside from the ever
> popular Murder Mystery. If you hear of anything else, I would be
> interested to know about them!
>
> Regards,
> Connson
>
> Connson C. Locke
> PhD Candidate
> Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations
> Haas School of Business
> University of California, Berkeley
> Email:
clocke@haas.berkeley.edu
>
> On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 06:38:47 -0400
> "Alge, Bradley J" <
algeb@PURDUE.EDU> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am looking for examples of hidden profile tasks or exercises to use
>> with students as as part of a class exercise on information sharing and
>> decision-making. Related, I am looking for effective hidden profile
>> tasks to incorporate into some lab research on information sharing. If
>> you have or know of any good ones and are willing to share them, I would
>> appreciate it.
>> Also, in a similar vein, if you could recommend examples of mixed motive
>> tasks that would be useful in a group decision-making context I would
>> appreciate it.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> Bradley J. Alge, PhD
>> Associate Professor of Management
>> Krannert School of Management
>> Purdue University
>> 100 S. Grant St., Rawls Hall 4043
>> West Lafayette, IN 47907-2076
>> Ph. 765-494-4483
>> Fax. 765-496-7434
>> E-mail:
algeb@purdue.edu
>
--
*************************************************
Dr. Sandra Ohly
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie
Mertonstr. 17 (Postfach 111932) 60054 Frankfurt
Telefon: +49 69 79823520
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