After Division, Before Decision. Group Faction Size and Predeliberation Thinking.

The primary objective of this study was to examine how the knowledge that one had weak, moderate, or strong support for one's position among fellow members of a decision-making group would affect several aspects of one's predeliberation thinking-viz., expectations about the eventual group decision, the number and evaluation of arguments generated for the decision alternatives, the perceived persuasiveness of other group members' arguments for each of the decision alternatives, and the expected enjoyment of deliberation. Before group deliberation, subjects were led to believe that they belonged to either a ten-, six-, or two-person faction in a twelve-person mock jury, or they were given no information about the factional structure of their group. Although subjects anticipated that there would be strength in numbers-i.e., as the size of a faction increased, the estimated probability of the group's adopting the faction's choice increased-subjects were less extreme in their expectations about the likely outcome than the size of their factions warranted. In addition, subjects' argument generation and evaluation and their expected enjoyment of deliberation were not materially affected by faction size. Those with at least some anticipated support in a group did not appear to materially alter their thinking about the decision task as a function of their degree of support in the group, at least not prior to group deliberation. Findings of relevance to the disproportionate influence of proacquittal jurors are discussed.