Pre‐discussion's note‐taking in hidden profile tasks

ABSTRACT It was discovered over three decades ago that groups tend to discuss common information while failing to discuss unique information in group decision‐making processes. This is called group's information pooling phenomenon or hidden profile problem. We report a work‐in‐progress study here that examines the effectiveness of using pre‐discussion notes to address hidden profiles in group decision‐making. Our data shows a moderate positive correlation between the appearance of a piece of information in participants’ notes and its appearance in the subsequent discussion, suggesting note‐taking prior to the group discussion as an effective approach. Our data also indicates that hidden profiles can affect the group performance through aspects other than information sharing.