IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/judgdm/v3y2008i8p659-666_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning to communicate risk information in groups

Author

Listed:
  • Ting, Hsuchi
  • Wallsten, Thomas S.

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Ting, Hsuchi & Wallsten, Thomas S., 2008. "Learning to communicate risk information in groups," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(8), pages 659-666, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:659-666_6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500001601/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:659-666_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jdm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.