Abstract
The main aim of this paper is to test the extent to which social acceptance moderates the impact of minority dissent on group cognitive complexity (GCC). We hypothesize that divergent views expressed by a minority increase GCC especially when the group climate is open to divergent contributions (e.g., a socially accepting group climate). We also hypothesize that group size has a non-linear association with GCC in such a way that GCC increases as group size increases from low to average and then GCC decreases as group size further increases from average to high. We test these hypotheses in a sample of 537 students (258 women, with an average age of 23.35) organized in 92 groups that have worked together in the same group throughout the semester, and show that: (1) group size has a decreasing positive association with GCC, (2) both minority dissent and social acceptance are beneficial for GCC and (3) groups with the highest GCC are those that experience minority dissent and develop a socially accepting climate (in which group members can equally participate to the task), allowing the majority to process the dissenting views extensively.
Highlights
Groups are extensively used in higher education in order to promote the transfer and acquisition of curricular knowledge (Lou et al, 2001; Chen et al, 2004; Curseu and Pluut, 2013; Kamau and Spong, 2015; de Hei et al, 2016)
Following the procedure described in Aiken et al (1991), group size, minority dissent and social acceptance were centered before entering their cross-product term in the regression, in order to reduce multicollinearity
Our study provides further evidence for the positive association between minority dissent and knowledge elaboration in groups
Summary
Groups are extensively used in higher education in order to promote the transfer and acquisition of curricular knowledge (Lou et al, 2001; Chen et al, 2004; Curseu and Pluut, 2013; Kamau and Spong, 2015; de Hei et al, 2016). Student groups engage collectively in educational activities in order to develop shared curricular knowledge (Lou et al, 2001; Van den Bossche et al, 2006; Nussbaum, 2008; Hämäläinen and Vähäsantanen, 2011). Group cognitive complexity (GCC) refers to the richness of these collective knowledge structures that is generated by the interplay of individual cognitive structures during interpersonal and intragroup interactions (Gruenfeld and Hollingshead, 1993; Curseu et al, 2007). Research to date has explored various antecedents of GCC ranging from individual cognitive complexity (Curseu et al, 2007) to group diversity (Curseu and Pluut, 2013) with the observation that the quality of interpersonal and intragroup interactions in collaborative learning groups
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