Master’s Thesis Proposal Meeting
Date: Tuesday, February 25th

Time: 11:30am-1:00pm

Location: J.S. Coon Building, Room 150

Advisor: Rick Thomas, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Thesis Committee members:

Rick Thomas, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Chris Hertzog, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Chris Wiese, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Title: EXAMINING THE EFFECT OF COLLABORATION ON POST-GROUP INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKING

Abstract:

The effects of collaborating with others on a task have been thoroughly examined in many fields (group decision-making, team research, brainstorming, etc.). However, there seems to be a glaring hole in the literature. Very few studies investigate the impact collaboration has on individual decision-making post collaboration. Although much of the literature concerning brainstorming, group decision-making, teams, economic games, and wisdom of the crowd is ancillary to the specific topic of interest, I review these literatures to the extent they relate to aspect of how collaboration might affect individual decision-making post-collaborative interaction. Much of the literature looking at collaboration report a mix of positive or negative results. This study seeks to extend the extant literature by focusing on the post-collaborative phase and how the effects identified via previous work that occur during group work may persist to influence individual decision-making. I’m also measuring the influence of collaboration on individual decision-making using a novel application of the Bayesian truth serum—a scoring method that grades participant answers as well as their predictions of how the population will answer (Prelec, 2004). Additionally, a collaborative score for each participant will be calculated based on how much support manifests for different options. Comparing each participant’s scores on both measures can illuminate precisely the conditions that collaboration leads to positive or negative effects on individual decision-making. I believe that the study has the potential to provide a first step to clarifying and providing some theoretical coherence to the collaboration literature, while introducing a relatively new topic to the literature centered around post-collaborative decision-making.