Pro/Con Lists and their Use in Group Decision Support Systems for Reducing Groupthink

Abstract

Groupthink can occur under certain conditions in all collaborative groups and online groups that use group decision support systems such as wikis which are of no exception. One of the measures for preventing groupthink within a group is ensuring that all alternatives are considered and are also evaluated in detail. Pro/con list interfaces may be more powerful than traditional textual collaborative interfaces in wikis but no literature so far has tested the differences between the two in terms of argument production and comprehension beyond laboratory conditions using real world data. This study explored the potential effects of the two interfaces on group performance by conducting a comparative mix-methods analysis between two popular websites. The production of arguments, the uniqueness of arguments for each article and also the comprehension of articles were measured. No statistically significant differences between the two interfaces were found for the production of arguments and comprehension. However, the pro/con list interface statistically produced more unique arguments compared to the textual collaborative interface. In addition, a couple of qualitative remarks uncovered some of the limitations of both interfaces.