Bounding Awareness and You

Bounded awareness has an extricable tie to our group dynamics and social learning. First, we must define the aspects of bounded awareness. According to Bazerman & Moore, bounded awareness refers to “the observation that people routinely overlook important information during the decision-making process” (2013).  My initial takeaway from this idea is people’s heuristic approach to group dynamics can be detrimental instead of advantageous. The reason I think most people will only discuss what is already known by the group is a form of pack mentality, safety in numbers and collectivism, possibly tied to social learning. A person does not want to be the outsider of the tribe, if their idea or thought might be interpreted as foolish or not relevant.

In further looking at other aspects of bounded awareness, strategic decisions “ones in which one has to take into consideration what may be going on in the minds of the other parties with whom he or she needs to arrive at a joint decision, including negotiating of various sorts” (Bazerman & Moore 2013).  Not understanding the rules of transactions or mindset of members can be counterproductive or even harmful. Often this “neglect can lead to such occurrences as paying more for a negotiable purchase than would be necessary or agreeing to a greater involvement in a group project than one should” (Bazerman and Moore 2013).

If I were a member of a decision-making group, armed with the knowledge of bounded awareness without the data from the assorted studies, I would have attempted to get the various parties to work on different angles. This is in line with role-assignment hypothesis. According to Stasser (1995), findings suggest that public identification of expertise (role assignment) promotes the collective pooling of unshared information. Stasser indicates that this role-assignment hypothesis predicts that groups whose members are explicitly assigned roles at the onset of discussion will recall more unshared information than groups whose members are not assigned roles.

According to Stasser’s role assignment hypothesis: Groups without role assignment recalled only 29% of the unshared items and groups with role assignment recalled 34% of unshared items. By way of comparison, groups overall recalled 58% of shared items. This clearly evidenced a sampling bias in favor of shared information and role assignment decreased but did not eliminate this bias. I would argue that complete removal of any bias might be beyond human capacity at our current state and the improvement shown in the study is substantial.

I have observed many meetings and gatherings and observed the effects firsthand. I have gone to meetings and walked out with nothing I did not have when I entered. I have found that if people are given an area they have to cover or invest their own resources into, then that angle will have something else to add to the gathering. In this situation “when members were explicitly assigned roles they have been more likely to take “megaturns” (Dabbs & Ruback, 1987; Stasser & Vaughan, 1996), each member in turn recalling as much as they could before passing the floor to another member” (Stasser & Vaughan, 1996).

In conclusion, based upon the data and my own anecdotal observations I think assigning roles will give the desired effects for my efforts. Assigning roles creates a sense of responsibility and accountability of members within the group. Individuals within the whole are differentiated by the role which curtails collectivist group think by making it negative to not contribute on your particular topic.

 

References:

Bazerman, M., Moore, D. (2013). Judgement in managerial decision making, 8^th edition. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley.

Dabbs, J. M., Jr., & Ruback, R. B. (1987). Dimensions of group process: Amount and structure of vocal interaction. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 20, pp. 123–169). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. (As cited in Stasser, Vaughan and Stewart, 1998)

Stasser, G., Stewart, D. D., & Wittenbaum, G. M. (1995). Expert roles and information exchange during discussion: The importance of knowing who knows what. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 244–265. (As cited in Stasser, Vaughan and Stewart, 1998)

Stasser, G., & Vaughan, S. I. (1996). Models of participation during face-to-face unstructured discussions. In E. H. Witte & J. H. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior: Consensual action by small groups (Vol. I, pp. 165–192). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (As cited in Stasser, Vaughan and Stewart, 1998)