Team Mental Models

Abstract

Team mental models have been referred to as one of the most well-developed team-level cognitive constructs studied in applied psychology and organizational behavior. They represent the organization of shared knowledge among team members. Empirical results on team mental models have varied on the basis of the content and property of the mental model examined. Content has typically focused on taskwork and teamwork mental models in which taskwork mental models represent shared knowledge on procedures, strategies, the environment, and team equipment, whereas teamwork mental models represent shared knowledge on the coordination of team responsibilities and team members’ knowledge, skills, and abilities. More-specific forms of content are often discussed in the literature; these have included temporal, situational, strategic, team goal, and team membership mental models. Examining team mental models at a higher level of granularity has often uncovered significant effects that are masked when simply focusing on taskwork or teamwork content. The property of team mental models varies on the basis of its focus on similarity or accuracy. Similarity represents the degree of overlap in knowledge among team members, whereas accuracy represents the overlap between each team member and an expert. Results have shown that oftentimes the effect of team mental model similarity on team effectiveness is moderated by its accuracy. Empirical results also vary on the basis of how the construct is measured and indexed. The most popular measurement technique is paired comparison ratings due to its ability to evaluate both content and structure. Other measurement types include concept maps, card-sorting tasks, questionnaires, text analysis, and interviews. Indexing refers to the method used to aggregate ratings from the individual to the team. These methods can be classified as capturing either consistency (e.g., the closeness index used in Pathfinder) or agreement (e.g., Euclidean distances). Consistency metrics have been shown to more consistently predict team effectiveness but researchers should match their research question to their indexing approach. A variety of variables have been shown to predict team mental models, such as team-training interventions, team member characteristics, attributes of the work environment, and other team emergent states. Team mental models have also been linked to a host of outcomes, including increased team performance, innovation, collective efficacy, decision quality, and team learning. Key research needs for the field include the examination of the construct over time and the differentiation of the construct from other forms of team cognition.