The Communication Effect On Optinion Divergence In Social Decision-Making

The opinion divergence is everpresent. Communication is usuallly regarded as the right approach to resolve opinion divergence. However the truth is just the reverse. Previous researches about group decision-making and advice taking have mainly investigated how people take other's opinion in the selection process, without considering the consensus process. Attiditudes change theory has also disscussed the impact of information transfer on attitudes change. In addition, some scholars have investegated how Chinese people undersdand and deal with opion divergence, but the method adopted in those studies was limited in semantics analysis and qustionare investigation. Although there were many descriptions and researches about the relationship of communication or information exchange and attitude change or conflict resolution, there was no experimental research about the impact of communication process on opinion divergence in social decision making situation.The communication process can divided into verbal communication and behavioral communication, according to the information transferred through communication. Verbal communication is the interpersonal communication through words; behavioral communication is a psychological construct that addresses people's use of behaviors as a form of communication.Based on the above analysis, two parts of studies were conducted, to explore the effect of verbal and behavioral communication on the change of opinion divergence in social decision-making. As follows: Part I of the study aimed to explore the effect of verbal communication on the change of opinion divergence in cooperative decision-making.In experiment 1, a cooperative decision making task was adopted to explore the influence of information type on extent of the divergence on opinion. The results showed that the extent of opinion divergence differed significantly in three types of information condition.In experiment 2, the cooperation decision task which determined through experiment1 was adopted, to investigate whether the verbal communication through computer network have impact on the difference of opinion between decision makers. The result indicated that,(1) there was significanct communication effect on the opinion divergence in cooperation decision making, this verbal communication was helpful in reduction the extent of divergence, but cannot determine the direction of opinion change; (2) information symmetry had significant influence on the opinion divergence, by influencing the communication process; (3) there were many factors in communication process, such as the amount of sentence, the reason, the simple repetition of decision opinion, the negative feedback, the affirmation feedback and so on. Among those factors, reason and feedback are the two most prominent factors.In experiment3, one three-stage cooperation decision task was adopted, to explore the reason and the feedback, as two independent variables, how to influence the communication effect. The index of communication included processual index, consequential index, and attitudinal indexes. The results revealed that, (1) there were significant influences of reason and feedback on the indexes of communication effect. In more specific terms, the reason have main effect on the processual index, the reason and the feedback factors both have main effects on the consequential indexes; (2) there was a heterogeneous agreement with other opinion, that is, the "agreement" with others' decision consists of two types, one is Really agreement which based on attitude change, and the other is Simulated agreement which is a kind of strategically response. The phenomenon of heterogeneous agreement implied the difference of the tendency of pursuing harmony and the tendency of pursuing sameness and identical. Harmony does not mean to follow and echo others' views. It is reached by seeking common ground while preserving differences, but not by agreement clinched without giving serious thought.Part II of the study aimed to explore the effect of behavioral communication on the change of opinion divergence in coopetition decision-making. In experiment 4, a modified version of the ultimatum game was adopted, in which three types of proposer (selfish, fair-minded, and generous) and three types of offers (low, even, high) were set. The purpose of experiment 4 was to test if the behavioral information of proposer can change responders'decisions. The results showed that responders'decision process were different due to behavioral information of proposer, and indicated an impression shifting process based on the observed behavioral information, that is, impression accumulation, impression formation, impression interference, and then new impression formation. The results also showed that, responders'decision results were influenced mainly by the type of offers. Subjects tend to accept high offer rapidly, but reject the other unfair offer (low offer) more slowly. In addition, the acceptance of high-offer was more hesitantly in contrast to even offer. The results implied that the core issue of opinion divergence in coopetition decision making situation is the balance between self-interest and fairness.The purpose of experiment 5 was to compare the decision-making of Tibetan nationality and Han nationality university students in ultimatum game, which carried on with someone from the same culture or the different culture. The results indicated that there was no significant cultural difference in the decision behaviors between intercultural and intracultural coopetition decision-making situationFrom the experiments above, the following conclusions are put forward:the communication effect on opinion divergence in social decision-making, manifested mainly in its influence on the extent of changing of option divergence, not on the direction of opinion change direction; the factors of communication effect in cooperative decision making mainly consist of reason and feedback in communication process; behavioral communication have influence on the decision process, but cannot change the decision outcome, the core issue of opinion divergence in coopetition decision making situation is the balance between self-interest and fairness; there is a obvious tendency of pursuing sameness and identical in communication under social decision making situation.