The Development and Stability of Norms in Groups Facing Interpersonal and Structural Challenge

The study tested two propositions of the Bettenhausen and Murnighan (1985) model of norm formation in competitive decision making groups and examined how diversity among group members' prior experiences affected the development and persistence of social norms in newly formed groups. Prior experience was manipulated in a laboratory setting so that approximately half of the 302 advanced undergraduate business student participants adopted each of two mutually exclusive behavioral responses to a set of objectively equivalent bidding tasks, i.e., they adopted either a cooperative or competitive orientation in a multiple-trial prisoner's dilemma type situation. 139 two person bidding teams were then formed. Group members had either similar or diverse orientation experiences, i.e., both cooperative, both competitive, or one cooperative and one competitive. After these groups formed bidding norms, moderate and strong structural challenges to the new group norms were introduced by increasing or decreasing the expected value of bidding cooperatively by moderate or large amounts.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Administration

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Bettenhausen, Kenneth Lee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Murnighan, J. Keith

• Psychology, Social

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8815323

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/70474