Second-Guessing in Group Decision Making

While numerous studies have demonstrated the difficulty minority opinion holders face when trying to persuade a majority, the present research investigated the conditions under which minority members might second-guess themselves and become advocates for the majority's position even when they have the best information. In a laboratory experiment, we examined whether the structure of monetary incentives (fixed amount vs. performance-based) and group decision-making procedure (collective decisions vs. group discussion then individual decisions) might mitigate second-guessing by minority members when they initially favor the objectively best choice. Our results indicated that compared with fixed-amount incentives, performance-based incentives increased overall information sharing in collective decision-making groups but not in individual decision-making groups. Second-guessing by minority members was most likely to occur in groups that received performance-based incentives and made decisions individually. As a result of second-guessing, these groups also made poorer decisions.