Wireless brainstorming: overcoming status effects in small group decisions

Social factors, such as status differences, may prevent some members from participating in group decisions. Computerized group decision support systems (GDSSs) can reduce social influences by allowing group members to contribute anonymously and in parallel. This study explores how a simple GDSS on a wireless handheld-device can augment face-to-face group decisions. Small groups of men and women brainstormed potential names for a computer game and voted for the best name using the wireless devices. The names generated were either associated with the person who produced them or not, and group member status was manipulated through the nature of the task and the proportions of men and women in the groups; men were more knowledgeable computer gamers and were always the numeric majority. We found-that men and women generated more ideas when they were anonymous, and- voting patterns were biased in favor of the ideas generated by men when members knew the idea's source, but not when the source was anonymous. These results suggest that a wireless GDSS can be used to reduce social bias that influences face-to-face decision making tasks.