CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

160 SCHULZ-HARDT, MOJZISCH, AND VOGELGESANG
sent in a group in order to stimulate divergent thinking among the majority,
from the perspective of the minority, we also have majority dissent.
Furthermore, both factions do not exert isolated influence on each other
but rather interact with each other, and this interaction might change the
nature of the influence processes. This leads us to two questions: First,
do we still observe divergent thinking and enhanced creativity among
majorities (due to minority dissent) and convergent thinking among
minorities (due to majority dissent) after both factions have interacted
with each other? Second, what is the net effect of both influence types
at the group level? If majorities become more flexible and creative and
minorities become more rigid and convergent, do these two counterdirectional
effects eliminate each other, or is there still a flexibility enhancing
effect of dissent evident at the group level?
Studies of simultaneous majority and minority influence in interacting
groups are far less frequent in the literature than studies on individual
level effects of majority and minority influence. Unfortunately, some of
the few studies in interacting groups do not even fully qualify for an
answer to the questions previously posited, for example, because confederates
were used as minorities (e.g., Van Dyne & Saavedra, 1996), or
because dependent variables were reported only for majority members
but not for minority members (e.g., Smith et al., 1996). The essence of these
studies is that minority dissent stimulates divergent thinking and cognitive
flexibility also among majority members in interacting groups, but
they do not tell us whether the minorities have to pay the price in terms
of more convergent, conventional thinking, and they also do not tell us
whether the net effect of both types of influence at the group level is still
in favor of flexibility, creativity, and performance.
With regard to the first question (information processing among minorities
and majorities during or after mutual interaction), a preliminary
answer can be obtained from studies by Gruenfeld and her colleagues.
Gruenfeld (1995), as well as Gruenfeld and Preston (2000), analyzed U.S.
Supreme Court decisions in cases of nonunanimous support and found
that the statements of members of the majority faction (who had been
exposed to minority dissent) were characterized by higher integrative
complexity than those of the minority faction (who had been exposed to
majority influence). High integrative complexity means considering an
issue divergently from multiple perspectives, whereas low integrative
complexity means convergently focussing on a single perspective. Since
such differences need not necessarily reflect different information processing
styles but, instead, could also be an impression management strategy
(the minority argues very consistently for the sake of persuasion), Gruenfeld,
Thomas-Hunt, and Kim (1998) conducted a laboratory experiment
with students simulating court discussions. On the basis of individual
judgments about the case, groups with minority and majority factions were
formed. After having made a majority-vote decision, members of both
factions either were asked to write down their personal thoughts about